Heart transplants from hepatitis C-positive donors could ease organ shortages

Hepatitis C-positive donors could be safely used for heart transplants, as a large study finds similar survival, rejection and complication rates between patients who received transplants from hepatitis C-positive and hepatitis C-negative donors. A large, multicenter study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, has observed similar outcomes between patients receiving heart transplants from hepatitis C-positive and -negative donors 1 year after transplantation. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (PA, USA) evaluated the 1-year survival rates of 7889 adults who received isolated heart transplants from 2016—2018 in the USA. Patients with severe heart failure often need...