During this period 66,284 recipients were transplanted, giving an infection rate of 0.006 percent. These data highlight the excellent record of the transplant community in the prevention of HIV transmission. Another safety concern is the potential for transmitting a malignancy from the donor to the recipient. Here again, the first and most important screen against this threat is a careful history from a knowledgeable family member and a detailed physical exam. A donor with any recent malignancy other than non-melanoma skin cancer should be approached with caution, but a remote malignancy, of which the donor can be considered cured, should not prevent organ acceptance.
Many donors undergo extensive medical imaging prior to organ donation.
A careful exploration of the chest and abdominal cavities at the time of organ retrieval presents another opportunity to uncover an occult cancer. Reports of donor-derived malignancy diagnosed in the recipient are exceedingly rare. 3,4 Indirect evidence of the safety of the donor organ from a malignancy standpoint comes from transplant registries. With tens of thousands of patients transplanted, only skin cancers and lymphomas occur at a higher incidence in transplant recipients than they do in the general population. In general, potential donors with known malignancies are precluded from organ donation.