Donor lungs treated for Hepatitis C before transplant
How would you feel about receiving a lung transplant from a donor infected with Hepatitis C?
It's a practice that's been going on for some time - and requires the patient to take immediate treatment to cure the disease, bringing with it some side effects.
But now doctors in Toronto are researching ways to try to eliminate the disease from organs before the transplant takes place.
Some 22 patients were involved in a study testing the new procedure which was published this week.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, DR. MARCELO CYPEL, SAYING:
"I think the decreasing stigma - it's a very important one - and that the differentiation with treating these patients after transplant with anti-viral drugs. When you treat the organ, you're basically making that positive organ into a negative organ; so they're no longer receiving an infected organ. And I think they are much more willing to accept that process."
The procedure is believed to have prevented two of the patients from contracting the virus following transplant.
But the rest needed to be treated with antiviral drugs.
So there will need to be more testing to see just how beneficial the procedure actually can be.
Last year, more than 200 people died in the United States while waiting for a lung transplant - and over 1,400 are on the waiting list for one.
Only around one in five donor lungs are ever even used - and among donors with hepatitis C, it's a mere four per cent.
Heres how it works.
Rapid advancements in machine lung perfusion means organs can been preserved for longer, keeping them alive outside the body, by pumping them with oxygen and nutrients.
And by storing them at normal body temperature, doctors are able to repair organs - which isn't possible if they're stored in an ice box.
(SOUNDBITE) (English) ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SURGERY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO, DR. MARCELO CYPEL, SAYING:
"This technology can be replicated outside lungs and in fact it has now been used for liver and kidney transplant as well, and there's also some data more recently in heart transplantation as well. So it's a very evolving field."
The technology though comes at a cost.
Use of perfusion can stretch to tens of thousands of dollars per organ, and by lack of expertise and training on the devices.
But for hospitals and patients who can afford it, this advance in medical science are breathing new life into those who desperately need it.
