Transplanting Livers From "HCV-Positive" Donors To HCV-Negative Recipients: Increased Experience But Many Unanswered Questions.

Abstract

Over the past several years, single- and multi-center case series have reported on the successful use of livers from hepatitis C virus (HCV)-antibody positive and HCV-viremic donors to HCV-negative recipients. Several authors have studied not only the efficacy of this practice but also its cost-effectiveness of transplanting HCV-infected organs to HCV-negative donors. However, previous studies had limited follow-up and had not examined transplants beyond the beginning of 2018. Using national data from 2014-2018, Thuluvath et al. demonstrated that post-transplant outcomes of recipients from either HCV-antibody and/or HCV-viremic donors were not different than those using livers from HCV-negative donors.