Study: Tests May Make Donated Tissue Safer

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Study: Tests May Make Donated Tissue Safer

By JEFF DONN

BOSTON (AP) - Just a single donor's tissue might slip through each year

infected with HIV or hepatitis, but U.S. donations could be made even safer

with genetic testing for the viruses, researchers have found...

Nearly always at the time of death, about 20,000 donors supply tissue - such

as bone, knee ligaments, heart valves and skin for burns - to about 1

million patients a year in this country. Very few serious infections are

transmitted, but an occasional case makes a stir. In 2002, dozens of

transplant patients came down with hepatitis C from an infected donor's

tissue distributed in Oregon, and one woman likely died as a result. Tissues

from a single donor are used in an average of 50 patients...

They estimated the chance of a donor's infection at 1 in 55,000 for HIV, 1

in 34,000 for hepatitis B, and 1 in 42,000 for hepatitis C...

With genetic testing, the probabilities could be cut to 1 in 100,000 for

hepatitis B, 1 in 173,000 for HIV, 1 in 421,000 for hepatitis C, the

researchers calculated.

They estimate the cost at $9 million - or $5 per donated sample...

Donated tissue undergoes several layers of screening to weed out samples

with infectious disease. Hospitals, families, and medical records rule out

certain donors. Bacterial cultures are taken from tissues, and viral tests

are run on blood taken shortly before or after the donor's death.

However, the viral tests, which typically read levels of immunity

antibodies, can miss some early infections. Genetic testing - known as

nucleic acid-amplification testing or NAT - reflects the presence of the

virus itself and so detects infections earlier.

While the FDA does not legally require NAT testing, blood banks are using it

routinely in cooperation with the federal agency. Some tissue banks have

started to use it in recent months...

On the Net:

The New England Journal of Medicine, http://www.nejm.org/

American Association of Tissue Banks, http://www.aatb.org/