Ten patients at Penn Medicine have been cured of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) following lifesaving kidney transplants from deceased donors who were infected with the disease. The findings point to new strategies for increasing the supply of organs for the nation's more than 97,000 patients who are awaiting kidney transplants - often for as many as five or more years. In 2016, Penn Medicine launched an innovative clinical trial to test the effect of transplanting kidneys from donors with HCV into patients currently on the kidney transplant waitlist who do not have the virus, and who opt in to receive these otherwise unused organs. Recipients were then treated with an antiviral therapy in an effort to cure the virus. Early data from the study were presented today by David S. Goldberg, MD, MSCE, an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, at the 2017 American Transplant Congress in Chicago, and were simultaneously published online on April 30, 2017 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The letter to the NEJM is titled “Trial of Transplantation of HCV-Infected Kidneys into Uninfected Recipients.” "We started this trial in the hopes that, if successful, we could open up an entirely new pool of donor organs, and effectively transplant hundreds, if not thousands, more patients who are awaiting a lifesaving organ," Dr. Goldberg said.Login Or Register To Read Full Story