In what some have called a groundbreaking development, Johns Hopkins University surgeons performed liver and kidney transplants from an HIV-positive donor to HIV-positive recipients.
The HIV Organ Policy Equity Act—which President Obama signed into law in 2013—allows HIV-positive donors to donate organs to patients infected with the AIDS-causing virus, Dr. Dorry Segev said. Segev—a professor of surgery and director of the epidemiology research group in organ transplantation—added that until the law was changed, thousands of HIV-positive patients risked death by waiting for donated organs.
HIV-positive patients can opt to accept an organ from a non-HIV-infected donor, potentially cutting their waiting time for a transplant, said Dr. Christine Durand, an assistant professor of medicine and oncology at Hopkins. Durand also said that organ transplants involving seropositive individuals carries risks such as the possibility that the donor has drug-resistant HIV.