NYC Newspaper Airs Risks in Use of "Expanded Criteria" Donors

A growing number of families of patients who receive transplants at New York City hospitals are complaining that they were not adequately informed of the risks involved in accepting marginal organs from older or less healthy donors, according to the New York Post.

The newspaper said New York University Medical Center, New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Mount Sinai Medical Center all said they routinely use organs from so-called "expanded criteria" donors including organs from drug or alcohol abusers and those infected with hepatitis.

Organs that do not meet the standard criteria are often used successfully and enable some seriously ill patients in need of transplants to shorten their time on long waiting lists by agreeing to accept a cadaver organ from an older or less healthy donor.

While people with AIDS or known cancer are generally excluded from being "expanded criteria" donors, the Post said New York transplant centers now "routinely transplant livers with signs of hepatitis B and the more dangerous C strain, a chronic disease that causes liver failure."

Among the cases cited by the newspaper:

• At NYU, a 37-year-old father of six died of cancer just a year after receiving a cancerous liver, according to his widow. Her lawyers, who are preparing a suit, contend that NYU the donor liver spread cancer throughout her husband's body.
• At NYU, Delfina Balan, 49, got hepatitis C from an infected donor liver -- and now needs another liver to survive. "I'm glad they tried to save me, but if I had known it was a bad liver, I would have said 'no,' " she said. Her husband said an NYU surgeon told him about "a possible donor who was exposed" to hepatitis C, did not explain the risks and complications. "She's a victim of the system," said Dr. Hillel Tobias, one of her doctors at NYU.

Other Sources: New York Post