Johns Hopkins – potentially the first U.S. hospital performing special transplants

Kidney transplants between HIV positive donors and recipients will be performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital in U.S.

“This is an unbelievably exciting time for our hospital and our team, but most importantly, it’s a hopeful time for patients living with HIV and end-stage organ disease. Organ transplantation is actually even more important for patients with HIV, since they die on the waiting list even faster than their HIV-negative counterparts. For these individuals, it can mean a new chance at life and a larger pool of organs,” commented the leader of the study, Professor Dorry Segev, M.D., Ph.D, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

As potentially donors are still being evaluated by undergoing rigorous screening, the project will be implemented as soon as the selection of the donor is approved and the beneficiary is identified and prepared for the surgery.

Currently, 96.000 people are on the wait-list for a kidney transplant in the United States and around 500 to 600 are HIV-positive suitable donors.

As the recent studies show that the long-term mortality is lower for live kidney donors, the special transplant will be executed between HIV-positive donors and recipients selected from the long awaiting list in the U.S.

This will be the continent’s first transplant of this kind.