The hearts of patients who were positivistic forCOVID-19appear to be as safe for transplanting as those without the disease . The result comes from a short - term analytic thinking , survive about one year , from a database showing heart transplantation in the United States . The finding are good newsworthiness , as they suggest that more safe transplants are possible . Over3,400 peopleare waiting for a heart in the US today .
The work compared 3,205 heart transplants from COVID-19 - negative patient role and 84 from COVID-19 - positive patients between February 2021 and March 2022 . They establish that the recipients of the organs had similar fatality rate rates and complications in both groups .
“ These findings suggest that we may be able to be more aggressive about bear donors that are positive for COVID-19 when patients are in dire need of an organ for middle transplantation , ” study writer Samuel T. Kim , B.A. , a third - year aesculapian student at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles , said in astatement .
The team receive that the average hospital halt for hoi polloi who received a heart from a COVID - positive conferrer was 15 days , versus 17 for the negative chemical group . Organ rejection occurred in 2.4 percentage of the case for the positive and 1 percent for the negatives . Among the group of 84 , 96.1 percent of people survived the first 30 days . The ascendancy had a selection rate of 97 percentage . The remainder between each solidifying of bit is not statistically pregnant .
“ These finding supply grounds that outcome were similar at 30 - mean solar day post - transplant among patients who received COVID-19 - positive donor heart , so the possible risk appear to be lower than expected , ” added Dr Eldrin F. Lewis from Stanford University . “ In routine , this may help to address the shortages in donor hearts for transplantation and cut down waiting time , since people often get sicker as substance failure progresses while waiting for a giver heart to become available . ”
The squad also cover that of the four patients who died after meet a nerve from a COVID-19 - positive person , none of them had buy the farm due to respiratory reason or infections . The team catch this as surprising .
“ Specifically , we thought death from respiratory or lung - have-to doe with causes would be a trouble among recipient role get conferrer nitty-gritty with COVID-19 , ” Kim tell . “ Yet , we found no such differences , and in fact , this discipline offer early evidence that COVID-19 - positive donor warmheartedness may be as safe as heart without COVID-19 for heart transplant . ”
The finding will be present at theAmerican Heart Association ’s Scientific Sessions 2022 .
