Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2000. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle - Wednesday, February 2, 2000
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor
The state Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis earmarked the money in the UC budget because patients who test positive for the AIDS virus are often rejected as transplant candidates even though they would otherwise be eligible for the surgery.
The unique small-scale study will involve only four HIV-positive patients already eligible for kidney transplants and three others who are awaiting liver transplants. All seven patients are at the top of the waiting list for donors and would be there even if HIV were not involved, according to Dr. Peter Stock, the UCSF transplant surgeon.
The study team, headed by Stock and Dr. Michelle Roland of UCSF's medical faculty, has three goals:
-- To learn whether the immunity-suppressing drugs required to prevent the transplanted organs from being rejected make HIV infections worse in the patients;
-- To learn whether the powerful AIDS drugs that the patients must use will affect the ability of the immunity-suppressing drugs to do their job after surgery;
-- To learn how the two types of compounds -- the AIDS drugs and the immunosuppressants -- interact with each other.
After the first research project is under way, a second million-dollar award will enable the program to add more patients, according to Dr. George Lemp, the university's AIDS research director. Eventually, the program will seek as many as 70 more HIV-positive patients eligible for transplants at other participating hospitals.
An estimated 135,000 patients with severe and life-threatening liver disease are now awaiting transplant donors, and more than 80,000 patients with end-stage kidney disease are also on current waiting lists.
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