Transplant Surgeon Received New Heart with Hepatitis C, Becoming a Living Example for His Patients

Transplant surgeon and director of NYU Langone's Transplant Institute Robert Montgomery recently received a heart transplant using the heart from a heroin user who had hepatitis C. Until not long ago, such organs tended to remain unused or went to patients with hepatitis C. After the surgery, Dr. Montgomery contracted and recovered from the disease.

Having lived with familial cardiomyopathy, Dr. Montgomery now uses himself as a living example to his patients, whom he encourages to receive hearts with hepatitis C. While the U.S. opioid crisis remains an immense national tragedy, it has caused the number of available hepatitis C-positive organs to grow. Dr. Montgomery expressed, "This was an opportunity to both use an organ that we wouldn't have used and to kind of morally align myself with what I believed and had been telling people... I could have stayed in the hospital for months or even a year... So I could have waited a long time and may have died." More than any other year, in the first ten months of 2018 there were 1,631 hepatitis C-positive organ transplants; 1,058 were for patients without hepatitis C, according to the United Network of Organ Sharing.

As treatment for hepatitis C has become more than 95% effective and increasingly covered by insurance, hospitals can now use organs with hepatitis C successfully. While patients usually contract the disease within days of the surgery, taking an oral pill daily almost always cures them within a few months.


Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-transplant-surgeon-needed-a-new-hearteven-if-it-had-hepatitis-c-11548691100?ns=prod/accounts-wsj


-- Caroline Aung