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(Ivanhoe Newswire) A recent high profile case involving transplant recipients who received organs from a donor considered at high risk for HIV has spurred new debate over how much information to give out about transplant risks.
In the case, four patients were infected with HIV following their transplants, even though the donor had tested negative for HIV at the time of the transplant. But doctors knew the person had engaged in behaviors that increased the risk of the condition.
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Should they have informed the transplant recipients of the potential risk?
University of Pennsylvania researchers suggest the moment when transplant decisions need to be made is not the time for such discussions. Noting donor organs are hard to come by, time is of the essence when they do become available. No one should be able to pick and choose which organs they want to receive. They believe a better approach would be to require all potential transplant recipients to be fully informed of all the possible risks of transplants at the time they go on the transplant waiting list.
Allowing a patient to cherry-pick his organs by telling him everything about a potential donor creates the potential for discrimination, inefficiency, and inequity in how organs are allocated, study author Scott Halpern, M.D., Ph.D., is quoted as saying. By contrast, notifying patients of all foreseeable risks of transplantation at the time they are placed on the waiting list protects their right to decide how much risk they will accept without any of these negative consequences for society.
Transplant risks include not just HIV and other infectious diseases, but also factors like whether or not the donor had high blood pressure or other chronic conditions that may make his or her organs less viable. Even the age of the donor comes into play. But since organs are in such short supply ten percent of patients awaiting a transplant die before they get one the current system allows donations from these higher risk individuals.
SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, published online June 25, 2008
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