News From Transplant Week of March 3, 2002 / Vol. 3 No. 9

 

Study: HIV-Infected Transplant Patients Have Good Success Rate
 

Early results from a multi-center study of HIV-infected patients who received kidney and liver transplants show one-year organ and patient survival rates that are almost the same as for transplant patients who are not HIV-infected.

"With the caveats that this data is retrospective -- a prospective study is in process -- and very preliminary, we can say that the news so far is extremely good for those subjects who met the eligible subject criteria," said Dr. Peter G. Stock of the University of California, San Francisco.

The study, which looked at 41 HIV-infected patients who had received liver and kidney transplants, found that 95 percent of the kidney transplant recipients and 84 percent of liver transplants surviving nearly one year post-transplant

The United Network for Organ Sharing reports the comparable survival rates for all transplant recipients are 97.6 percent for recipients of a kidney from a living donor, 94.8 percent for recipients of cadaver kidneys, and 87.9 percent for liver recipients.

The researchers reported at the 9th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections that 89 percent of the transplanted kidneys and 84 percent of the transplanted livers continued to function nearly one year after transplant.

"HIV disease does not seem to be progressing at an appreciable rate post-transplant in eligible subjects -- those without a history of opportunistic infections, with relatively preserved CD4 T-cell counts, and suppressed or suppressible HIV virus," said the study's lead investigator, Dr. Michelle E. Roland of UCSF.

Other sources: UCSF