Background: Although hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission through tissue transplantation has been rarely reported, a donor with undetected viremia may infect several recipients. A patient developed acute hepatitis C shortly after tissue transplantation. Ninety-one tissues or organs had been recovered from the donor.
Objective: To determine whether the donor was the source of infection and the extent of transmission to other organ and tissue recipients.
Design: Descriptive epidemiologic study; serum testing for HCV infection.
Setting: Recipients were located in 16 states and 2 other countries.
Participants: Donor and graft recipients.
Measurements: Hepatitis C virus infection was defined as the presence of anti-HCV or HCV RNA. The authors determined the genetic relatedness of viral isolates from the donor and recipients by genotype comparison and quasi-species analysis.
Results: The donor was anti-HCV-negative but was HCV RNA-positive (genotype 1a). Forty persons received transplants during 22 months. Five persons were HCV-infected before transplantation or had a genotype other than 1a, and 5 persons had no post-transplantation serum specimens available. Of the remaining 30 recipients, HCV infection occurred in 8 recipients: 3 of 3 organ recipients, 1 of 2 saphenous vein recipients, 1 of 3 tendon recipients, and 3 of 3 tendon with bone recipients. These 8 recipients had viral isolates genetically related to those of the donor. No cases occurred in recipients of skin (n = 2), cornea (n = 1), or irradiated bone (n = 16).
Limitations: Post-transplantation serum specimens were unavailable for 5 recipients.
Conclusions: An anti-HCV-negative donor was the source of HCV infection for 8 recipients of organs or tissues. Although HCV transmission from anti-HCV-negative donors is probably uncommon, changes in donor screening to include routine testing for HCV RNA merit further consideration to improve the safety of transplantation.