Surgeons transplant hep C-infected kidneys, then cure the virus
It was a daring experiment aimed at expanding the supply of donor organs: Transplant kidneys infected with hepatitis C into uninfected patients, then give them a powerful new drug to banish the virus.
The strategy worked flawlessly in separate pilot studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University, researchers reported Sunday at the American Transplant Congress in Chicago.
The insidious virus was eradicated in all the kidney transplant recipients — 10 each at Penn and Hopkins — with a 12-week course of Zepatier. The maker, Merck, donated its $55,000 drug.
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Normally an organ infected with the virus would be offered only to transplant patients who already have the disease — or it would be thrown away. Experts say the lost opportunity of these donor organs has been magnified by the opioid epidemic; many young drug users who die of overdoses have hep C, but otherwise their organs are strong.
Meanwhile, more than 99,000 people are on the national kidney waiting list. Each year, about 17,000 of them get a transplant — and 4 percent die waiting, despite buying time with dialysis.
The new hep C drugs, with cure rates of 95 percent or more, could make a dent in those statistics.
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Costs could be a barrier. The most expensive newer drug, Gilead Sciences’ Harvoni, costs $94,000 for a course. Hep C treatment would be on top of the costs of a transplant and the powerful drugs necessary to prevent organ rejection.
Then again, a year of dialysis costs about $75,000, and market analysts anticipate hep C drug prices will fall as more drugs are approved and competition continues to grow.
Hopkins’ Desai also speculated that transplant patients could be cured with far fewer than 12 weeks of treatment.
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/health-news/Penn-Medicine-Hopkins-UNOS-transplant-hepatitis-Zepatier-Merck-Gilead-Harvoni--dialysis.html
(This is from May, but NBC told this story earlier in its nightly news, so I went in search of a non-video story)
