Why the study?
Despite a shortage of pediatric donor hearts, organs from donors infected with influenza are often declined due to concerns about disease transmission leading to severe disease.
Is heart transplantation from an influenza A-positive donor safe and feasible in pediatric patients?
Is heart transplantation from an influenza A-positive donor safe and feasible in pediatric patients?
Influenza A infection in a donor, even if incompletely treated, may be a manageable infection that does not necessarily preclude pediatric heart transplantation.
Supports cautious consideration of treated influenza-positive pediatric heart donors; hypothesis-generating and requires larger studies before practice change.
There is a shortage of pediatric donor hearts for waitlisted children, and yet nearly 50% of organs offered are not transplanted. Donor quality is often cited as a reason for declining organs offered from donors infected with influenza, presumably due to concern about disease transmission at transplant leading to severe disease. We previously described an excellent outcome after heart transplant from a donor infected with influenza B that had been treated with a complete course of oseltamivir. In this report, we describe a similar outcome after transplantation of an organ from an influenza A-positive donor with symptomatic disease incompletely treated with oseltamivir. Due to the availability of effective antiviral treatment, we suggest that influenza A is also a manageable donor infection that need not preclude heart placement.
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Smith et al. (2019) studied this question.
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