Hepatitis C viremic lung transplantation to aviremic recipients: Comprehensive outcomes and post-transplant viremia.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy has revolutionized solid organ transplantation by providing an opportunity to utilize organs from HCV-viremic donors. Though transplantation of HCV-viremic donor organs into aviremic recipients is safe in the short term, midterm data on survival and post-transplant complications is lacking. We provide a midterm assessment of complications of lung transplantation (LT) up to 2 years post-transplant, including patient and graft survival between HCV-viremic transplantation (D+) and HCV-aviremic transplantation (D-).

METHODS: This is a retrospective cohort study including 500 patients from 2018 to 2022 who underwent LT at our quaternary care institution. Outcomes of patients receiving D+ grafts were compared to those receiving D- grafts. Recipients of HCV antibody+ but PCR- grafts were treated as D- recipients.

RESULTS: We identified 470 D- and 30 D+ patients meeting inclusion criteria. Crude mortality did not differ between groups (p = .43). Patient survival at years 1 and 2 did not differ between D+ and D- patients (p = .89, p = .87, respectively), and graft survival at years 1 and 2 did not differ between the two groups (p = .90, p = .88, respectively). No extrahepatic manifestations or fibrosing cholestatic hepatitis (FCH) occurred among D+ recipients. D+ and D- patients had similar rates of post-transplant chronic lung allograft rejection (CLAD) (p = 6.7% vs. 12.8%, p = .3), acute cellular rejection (60.0% vs. 58.0%, p = .8) and antibody-mediated rejection (16.7% vs. 14.2%, p = .7).

CONCLUSION: There is no difference in midterm patient or graft survival between D+ and D-LT. No extrahepatic manifestations of HCV occurred. No differences in any type of rejection including CLAD were observed, though follow-up for CLAD was limited. These results provide additional support for the use of HCV-viremic organs in selected recipients in LT.