Legaz I, Muro M. Analysis of hepatitis C virus-positive organs in liver transplantation.. World J Hepatol 2022; 14(9): 1840-1843 [PMID: 36185718 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i9.1840]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Isabel Legaz, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Legal and Forensic Medicine, Biomedical Research Institute, Regional Campus of International Excellence "Campus Mare Nostrum", Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Espinardo, Murcia 30100, Spain. isalegaz@um.es
Research Domain of This Article
Transplantation
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Hepatol. Sep 27, 2022; 14(9): 1840-1843 Published online Sep 27, 2022. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v14.i9.1840
Analysis of hepatitis C virus-positive organs in liver transplantation.
Isabel Legaz, Manuel Muro
Isabel Legaz, Department of Legal and Forensic Medicine, Biomedical Research Institute, Regional Campus of International Excellence "Campus Mare Nostrum", Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Murcia 30100, Spain
Manuel Muro, Department of Immunology Service, Instituto Murciano de Investigación Biosanitaria, Hospital Clínico Universitario Virgen de la Arrixaca, Murcia 30120, Spain
Author contributions: Muro M and Legaz I designed the research, performed the research, and wrote and revised the letter.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Isabel Legaz, PhD, Senior Lecturer, Department of Legal and Forensic Medicine, Biomedical Research Institute, Regional Campus of International Excellence "Campus Mare Nostrum", Faculty of Medicine, University of Murcia, Espinardo, Murcia 30100, Spain. isalegaz@um.es
Received: May 30, 2022 Peer-review started: May 30, 2022 First decision: July 6, 2022 Revised: July 7, 2022 Accepted: August 30, 2022 Article in press: August 30, 2022 Published online: September 27, 2022
Abstract
The authors of this study note that in liver transplantation (LT), the survival rates of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-positive donors and HCV-negative receivers are comparable to those of HCV-negative donors and recipients. Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapies have nearly 100% effectiveness in treating HCV. Between 2006 and 2016, the percentages of HCV-positive patients on the waiting list and HCV-positive LT recipients fell by 8.2 percent and 7.6 percent, respectively. Records from April 1, 2014, in which the donor and receiver were both at least 18 years old and had a positive HCV status, were the only ones eligible for the study. The analysis for this study was restricted to the first transplant recorded for each patient using a data element that documented the number of prior transplants for each recipient, although some recipients appeared multiple times in the data set. HCV-positive recipients or people with fulminant hepatic failure were the main beneficiaries of primary biliary cirrhosis among HCV-positive donors. However, there is still a reticence to use HCV-positive donor organs in HCV recipients due to clinical and ethical considerations. Similar survival rates between HCV-positive donors and recipients and HCV-negative donors and receivers illustrate the efficacy of these DAA regimens.
Core Tip: The scarcity of viable organs, which is quite limited, the waiting lists that reflect chronicity and the increase in time to transplantation, and the rate of physical deterioration resulting in death while waiting for a helpful organ for transplantation, promote the search for new ways, strategies, and protocols to increase the group of donors acceptable for transplantation, such as donors in asystole, donors with tumor processes, or donors with previous infection. The application of antivirals against the hepatitis C virus (HCV), with unprecedented success in the elimination of the pathogen, has led to the use of HCV-positive donors as optimal donors for HCV-negative recipients, with survival similar to that of both HCV-negative donors and recipients, which supports the use of these HCV-positive donors without restrictions.
