HIV-positive patients can experience organ failure over time. Until recently, HIV-positive patients had little chance at securing an organ transplant, according to NBC 16.
Peter Stock, MD, PhD, transplant surgeon and professor at the University of California San Francisco, and colleagues led the move to reverse federal and state laws banning HIV positive patients from donating organs.
"Patients no longer progressed from having HIV to AIDS," Dr. Stock told NBC 16. "We're seeing this increasing number of patients that need transplants with HIV. We know that the patients who have HIV don't do as well on the waiting list."
Now HIV patients wait about a year before being considered eligible to receive a transplant, thanks to initiatives to allow HIV-to-HIV organ donations. About 25 hospitals across the U.S. practice HIV-to-HIV donor programs. Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins was the first hospital to perform a HIV-positive to HIV-positive organ donation.
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