Kidney transplants are safe between people with HIV, US study finds

The findings could help shorten overall wait times for organ transplants. People with HIV can safely receive donated kidneys from deceased donors with the virus, according to a large US study that comes as the government moves to expand the practice. That could shorten the wait for organs across the board, regardless of someone’s HIV status.

The new study, published Wednesday in the , looked at 198 kidney transplants performed across the US. Participants in the study were HIV positive, had kidney failure and agreed to receive an organ from either an HIV-positive deceased donor or an HIV-negative deceased donor, whichever kidney became available first. Researchers followed the organ recipients for up to four years.

They compared the half who received kidneys from HIV-positive donors to those whose kidneys came from donors without HIV. Both groups had similar high rates of overall survival and low rates of organ rejection. Virus levels rose for 13 patients in the HIV donor group and for four in the other group, mostly tied to patients failing to take HIV medications consistently, and in all cases returned to very low or undetectable levels.

“This demonstrates the safety and the fantastic outcomes that we’re seeing from these transplants,” said study co-author Dr Dorry Segev of NYU Langone Health in the US. In 2010, surgeons in South Africa provided the first evidence that using HIV-positive donor organs was safe in people with HIV. But the practice wasn’t allowed in t.