Hepatitis C Virus (HCV)

One of two saphenous vein recipients were found to have been infected with HCV by the transplanted tissue as part of an investigation following confirmation of transmission to a tendon recipient. The recipient was one of 8 organ and tissue allograft recipients that acquired HCV infection from a seronegative (but HCV RNA positive) recently infected donor. The index case was a patellar tendon (bone-tendon-bone) recipient, who developed ʺclinical HCV infectionʺ six weeks after transplantation; the other transmissions were identified as part of the investigation that followed that case.  HCV RNA testing of cadaveric donors was not required at the time of the donor's death. This publication gave clinical signs, symptoms, outcomes in only two infected recipients: the lung and patellar tendon recipients. Two years after donation, at least three recipients of organs and tissues had been diagnosed with HCV infection but their infections had not been investigated as potential transmissions. HCV transmission demonstrated in 3 of 3 organ recipients, 1 of 3 tendon recipients, 3 of 3 bone-tendon-bone recipients, 1 of 2 saphenous vein recipients, but not in any of the 16 recipients of freeze-dried irradiated bones, the 2 recipients of cryopreserved, antibiotic soaked skin or the one cornea recipient.