Hepatitis C now OK in donated organ

New antiviral drugs that promise a cure for the millions of Americans with chronic hepatitis are also benefiting another category of patients: those awaiting organ transplants.

Those patients now can receive an organ that has tested positive for hepatitis C, and if they become infected, they can be administered the antiviral drugs to rid them of the disease.

The cost of the antiviral drugs has dropped since their introduction, although at a low of $26,400 for an eightweek course of treatment, they remain expensive. For that reason, many state Medicaid agencies and some commercial insurers have restricted access to the medication, although a number of them are modifying the restrictions.

Transplant specialists say the availability of organs from donors with hepatitis C is easing the chronic shortage of organs.

“I am not aware of any other development that has allowed us to expand the donor pool in this way,” said Kelly Schlendorf, medical director of the adult heart-transplant program at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which started using hearts infected with hepatitis C in 2016 after successful transplants of infected livers at the Nashville hospital.

“We’ve been able to transplant 50 more hearts into patients on the waiting list,” Schlendorf said. “That’s 50 hearts that wouldn’t have been used before.”

It is too early to know exactly how many more organs might eventually become available as a result of new policies regarding organs infected with hepatitis C, said David Klassen, chief medical officer of the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit organization that runs the nation’s transplant system. The use of those organs is still being tested, as transplant centers and organ-procurement centers develop protocols, and most potential donors don’t yet know about these new standards.