CDC detects first U.S. cases of disease tied to transplants

Posted 1:58PM on Thursday 14th March 2002 ( 23 years ago )

ATLANTA - Three women who received organ donations from an infected cadaver contracted the first U.S. cases of a disease spread by parasites, federal health officials reported Thursday. Two of the women died after contracting Chagas disease, which was previously confined to Latin America. The United States does not screen potential organ donors for the parasite that causes the infection. A separate study released Thursday turned up 26 bacterial infections traced to tissue grafts in the United States, including a Minnesota man who died after reconstructive knee surgery. The three cases of Chagas disease were traced to the cadaver of an immigrant from Central America. Health officials presume the immigrant was infected with T. cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas. A 37-year-old woman died of Chagas in October after receiving a kidney and a pancreas from the donor. A 32-year-old woman who received the liver contracted Chagas and died of kidney and liver failure in July. A 69-year-old woman who received the other kidney was treated and is recovering. The CDC said Thursday it was consulting with U.S. transplant organizations to come up with recommendations on whether to start screening for the parasite and if so, whom to screen and how. ``It's a complex issue,'' said Dr. Barbara L. Herwaldt, a CDC epidemiologist. ``Which donors would be screened? What test would be used? Right now even blood donors aren't screened for this infection.'' The CDC did not release the names or hometowns of the three women. The government estimates as many as 100,000 immigrants from Latin America living in the United States may carry the T. cruzi parasite. More than 16 million people are said to be infected in Central and South America. ``We certainly don't want people to avoid transplantation,'' Herwaldt said. ``Nor do we want people to look askance at people from Latin America. What we have to do is go through a rather deliberative process of decided what tests should be used.'' Ten percent to 30 percent of people infected with the parasite develop full-blown Chagas disease, which is marked by cardiomyopathy, or irregularities in the heart muscle. The tissue-graft study was launched in November after a 23-year-old Minnesota man died from a bacterial infection he contracted during surgery to reconstruct his knee with tissue from a cadaver. A 17-year-old Illinois boy became sick after receiving two tissue grafts from the same donor. That patient is recovering, the CDC said. The 26 cases were identified after CDC alerted the Food and Drug Administration, state regulators and doctors nationwide. Fourteen of the patients received tissue processed by the same supplier. The CDC did not name the company. Tissue graft surgery is still overwhelmingly safe, the CDC stressed. At least 650,000 of the procedures were performed in 1999, the last year for which figures are available. But the CDC said the tissue graft report showed an urgent need to update federal regulations and industry standards on anti-contamination measures.

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/3/202817