2 Kidney Recipients Contract Brain Disease From Donor

[okarol]

The New York Times

December 19, 2009
2 Kidney Recipients Contract Brain Disease From Donor
By DENISE GRADY

Two transplant patients are critically ill with a rare brain infection that was transmitted to them by kidneys taken from a donor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, health officials reported on Friday.

The same infection probably killed the organ donor, but it was not diagnosed; his doctors thought he had an autoimmune disease. Two other patients also received heart and liver transplants from the donor, but neither has become ill. The transplants took place in November, in three states. A spokeswoman for the university declined to say where the recipients were, citing patient confidentiality.

Three weeks after their transplant surgeries, the kidney recipients became ill abruptly, within hours of each other, with seizures, a change in mental status and fever, said Dr. Eileen Farnon, an epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is investigating the cases. A doctor noted that both were transplant recipients, and immediately suspected that they might have contracted an illness from the donor.

Subsequent tests of tissue left from the deceased donor found the infection, which was also diagnosed in the patients. The patients are being treated with a mixture of antimicrobial drugs.

The infection is caused by an amoeba, Balamuthia mandrillaris, which lives in soil and water. Only about 70 cases have ever been identified in the United States. Nearly all have been fatal. The current cases are the first to have been found in transplant recipients. Although infections from transplants are uncommon, there have been cases in which recipients contracted West Nile virus, rabies and other infections.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/19/health/19transplant.html?emc=eta1