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If effective, the new approach could make a dent in the kidney waiting list, where about 5 percent of patients die each year.
Last month, Kiran Shelat let University of Pennsylvania surgeons replace his failing kidneys with one that they knew would infect him with hepatitis C, a virus that could slowly destroy his liver.
Normally, a kidney infected with hep C would be offered only to transplant patients who already have the disease — or thrown away.
But the advent of new hep C drugs, with cure rates of 95 percent or more, has led Penn transplant specialists to see infected kidneys as a small but valuable opportunity to expand the pool of organs that 100,000 Americans are waiting for.
Two days after Shelat’s transplant, tests confirmed the Yardley civil engineer was hep C positive, and he began a 12-week course of Zepatier, Merck’s $55,000 therapy.
Although it’s too soon to say he is cured, the virus is now undetectable in his blood, the Penn team announced Tuesday morning. And he is free of peritoneal dialysis, the nightly 10-hour blood-cleansing process that was barely controlling the downward spiral caused by his autoimmune kidney disease.