Better Screening Test Is Sought to Detect Infections in Organ Donors

Better Screening Test Is Sought to Detect Infections in Organ Donors
By DENISE GRADY
Published: September 22, 2011

Improvements are needed in the screening of organ donors to protect transplant patients from hepatitis B and C, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday. Transplant centers already test both living and dead donors for those diseases, but many centers use an older type of blood test that cannot detect an infection that was acquired very recently. A newer technique, nucleic acid testing, can find infections earlier. For hepatitis C, for instance, the older test cannot detect the disease during the first 70 days after infection. But nucleic acid testing can find it after seven days. The newer test is already used to detect H.I.V. Infections in organ recipients prompted the new recommendations. From 2007 to 2010, the C.D.C. confirmed dozens of cases of hepatitis B and C and H.I.V. caused by transplants; some patients died.

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