Early Data on Utilization and Discard of Organs From COVID-19–infected Donors: A US National Registry Analysis

Transplant of organs from donors with positive SARS‐CoV‐2 nucleic acid testing: A report from the organ procurement and transplantation network ad hoc disease transmission advisory committee

“…While earlier reports document utilization of SARS-CoV-2 NAT+ donors through the eras of the Delta variant, [32][33][34] Taken together, these findings suggest that programs used SARS-CoV-2 NAT+ organs to meet the transplant needs of waitlist candidates who may be less likely to receive a NAT-organ. Use was concentrated in a few OPTN regions, suggesting that use of SARS-CoV-2 NAT+ organs is not widespread and early adopter programs drove much of the utilization of these organs.…”

Long-term and Short-term Outcomes of Solid Organ Transplantation From Donors With a Positive SARS-CoV-2 Test

“…A positive COVID test can signify a potentially false positive test to various stages of COVID-19 in the donor. 4 A careful review of clinical, radiological evidence, and Ct values from the PCR test by a dedicated group of transplant team can help determine the risk of infectivity of the donor 1 and then the donor organ is matched with a carefully selected recipient. Two recipients developed COVID-19 11 mo after the initial transplantation, thus highlighting the need for continuous counseling regarding safe practices, need for complete vaccination of the recipient and all household contacts, and/or use of pre-exposure prophylaxis in selected high-risk recipients.…”

Detection of Transmissible Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 From Deceased Kidney Donors: Implications for Kidney Transplant Recipients

“…W e reported that in the United States, 388 organs from (SARS-CoV-2) nucleic acid test (NAT) positive 150 donors were procured between August 2020 and September 2021. 1 Considering that nearly 1 million deaths have been attributed to COVID pandemic, this suggests that a highly selected group of donor organs were assessed for transplantation. Even after procurement, 28% organs were discarded.…”

“…For kidney transplants, the most common reason for high-quality organ discards (35%) was “exhaustion of waitlist,” indicating provider and patient reluctance to accept these transplants. 1 Concerns for a presumed risk of donor transmission are supported by observations that SARS-CoV-2 RNA could be detected in plasma of up to 50%–100% hospitalized patients. 2 Jansen has reported that SARS-CoV-2 can directly infect the human kidney.…”