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Donor‐derived human herpesvirus 8 and development of Kaposi sarcoma among 6 recipients of organs from donors with high‐risk sexual and substance use behavior
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Donor‐derived human herpesvirus 8 and development of Kaposi sarcoma among 6 recipients of organs from donors with high‐risk sexual and substance use behavior

Sheila C. Dollard, Pallavi Annambhotla, Phili Wong, Katherine Meneses, Minal M. Amin, Ricardo M. La Hoz, Erika D. Lease, Maria Budev, Andrea Valeria Arrossi, Sridhar V. Basavaraju, …
American journal of transplantation, Vol.21(2), pp.681-688
08/04/2020
DOI: 10.1111/ajt.16181
PMCID: PMC7891580
PMID: 32633035
url
https://doi.org/10.1111/ajt.16181View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Kaposi sarcoma (KS) can develop following organ transplantation through reactivation of recipient human herpesvirus 8 (HHV‐8) infection or through donor‐derived HHV‐8 transmission. We describe 6 cases of donor‐derived HHV‐8 infection and KS investigated from July 2018 to January 2020. Organs from 6 donors, retrospectively identified as HHV‐8‐positive, with a history of drug use disorder, were transplanted into 22 recipients. Four of 6 donors had risk factors for HHV‐8 infection reported in donor history questionnaires. Fourteen of 22 organ recipients (64%) had evidence of posttransplant HHV‐8 infection. Lung recipients were particularly susceptible to KS. Four of the 6 recipients who developed KS died from KS or associated complications. The US opioid crisis has resulted in an increasing number and proportion of organ donors with substance use disorder, and particularly injection drug use history, which may increase the risk of HHV‐8 transmission to recipients. Better awareness of the risk of posttransplant KS for recipients of organs from donors with HHV‐8 infection risk could be useful for recipient management. Testing donors and recipients for HHV‐8 is currently challenging with no validated commercial serology kits available. Limited HHV‐8 antibody testing is available through some US reference laboratories and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The authors report a series of human herpesvirus 8 infections transmitted from deceased donors with drug use and/or sexual risk factors that led to Kaposi sarcoma in organ transplant recipients.
clinical research donors and donation: donor‐derived infections infection and infectious agents infectious disease Original ORIGINAL ARTICLES Dissertation in Practice

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