Bolstered by Liver Transplant, HIV Patient Rebuilds His Life

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CDC HIV/STD/TB Prevention News Update

Wednesday, December 31, 2003

UNITED STATES:

" Bolstered by Liver Transplant, HIV Patient Rebuilds His Life "

Associated Press (12.31.03)

A liver transplant performed as part of a nationwide clinical

trial for HIV-positive people has revived musician Terry LaBolt. After

20 years of combined HIV and hepatitis B infection, he was the first

HIV-positive patient in the Cincinnati area to receive a new liver.

Earlier in the epidemic, people with HIV were rejected for organ

transplants because it was assumed they would not live long enough to

justify the procedure. But since the introduction of successful

antiviral therapy, liver damage has become one of the leading causes of

death for people with HIV, who can also have hepatitis B and C viruses.

Still, however, HIV patients were rejected as transplant candidates

because doctors feared post-surgery antirejection drugs would interfere

with HIV medications.

LaBolt's transplant was part of a clinical trial run by

researchers at the University of California-San Francisco. The

University of Cincinnati is one of 14 participating medical centers.

The study calls for performing 130 liver transplants on HIV-

positive patients over the next three years. This represents less than

1 percent of the 15,000 liver transplants expected to be performed

nationwide in the same period. The goal is to determine which HIV

medications work best with antirejection drugs and which drug

combinations to avoid post-surgery.

Across the country, 17,679 people are on liver transplant waiting

lists, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. Through

September, 4,244 such operations were performed in 2003.

Researchers say it is too early to tell how many of the 900,000

Americans with HIV will get sick enough to need a new liver. Before the

study started, about 50 people with HIV got liver transplants from 1997

to 2002 at medical centers in San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia

and Miami.