2023-05-26 14:55:14
Mortality in transplant patients who receive a new heart from a person who was infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus is higher than that of those whose organ was received from a person who did not have the coronavirus infection. A study has seen it, published in «Journal of the American College of Cardiology»in which a group of team of researchers from the Montefiore Medical Center and of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of New York analyzed data from the database of the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) related to Covid-19.
Previous autopsy research has shown that while transmissible SARS-CoV-2 viruses are usually limited to those residing in the respiratory tract, virus-bound proteins are found in other parts of the body, including the heart.
This new work explored the impact of heart donations from patients infected with Covid-19 who die from other causes (most often head injuries). The team analyzed data looking for incidences of heart donors who were also infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, for the period between May 2020 and June 2022. They also extracted data from donors who had suffered an infection before donation. , but that they had had time to recover before his death.
In all, 150 donors were found to have been infected at the time of death and 87 who had died shortly after recovering from an infection. They also extracted data from similar patient types for donors with no history of infection.
By analyzing the data, they discovered that theThe mortality rate for patients who received a heart from an infected donor was 13.8% at six months, compared with 4.9% for those who were not infected..
After a year, they detail in the article, the rates were 23.2% and 9.2%, respectively.
The researchers also found that the differences in rates for patients who received hearts from donors who had recovered from their infections before donating were almost identical to those who received a heart from someone who had never been infected.
The team concludes that donors should be tested for Covid-19 before donating a heart, or any other organ, based on their findings.
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