The Transplantation Gamble: Giving patients organs infected with Hepatitis C

    In the Unites States today over 5,000 people wait on a list for a new heart. These people are on the list for a variety of reasons but all have one thing in common. They need to have a heart transplant in order to survive. However donor hearts are very rare to come by and annually over 1000 people on the list will die, their disease progressing faster than their position on the list.

   One such reason donor organs have been so hard to come by in the past is that they must be declared disease free in order to be given to a person needing transplant. Each year about 1000 hearts are thrown out after testing positive for Hep. C a fatal liver disease. In 2016 though a new FDA approved treatment for Hepatitis C has made the disease curable in 98% of patients. Now that the disease is virtually curable, doctors at Vanderbuilt and across the country have begun a trial to transplant Hep C positive hearts into patients and then treat the patient for the disease, thus curing them and giving them a new heart.

    This trial has been successful so far, with transplant patients showing no signs of Hep C for the first 12 weeks after surgery(2), however as this grows as an option for those on the waiting list, more complications may arise.   Also this new development shows that if we create more cures for other viruses we could one day transplant other infected organs and close the gap between donors and those needed organ transplants. 

   So imagine if you were on the waiting list for a organ. Would you take a Hep C infected organ? Why or why not?
- Chris LeBoa 

References: 

 Hepatitis C falls as barrier to heart transplantation. (n.d.). Retrieved November 25, 2017, from http://www.mdedge.com/ecardiologynews/article/147378/heart-failure/hepatitis-c-falls-barrier-heart-transplantation

  Roche, G. (2017, October 13). Hepatitis C Antivirals Safe in Heart Transplant Patients. Retrieved November 25, 2017, from http://www.ajpb.com/news/hepatitis-c-antivirals-safe-in-heart-transplant-patients