FISHMAN JA; Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.
Abstr Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 1999 Sep 26-29; 39: 758 (abstract no. 644).
Mass. Gen. Hosp./Harvard Med. Sch., Boston, MA.
The clinical application of xenotransplantation expands the spectrum of infectious diseases confronted in allotransplantation to include diseases derived from other animal species. Concern has been raised about the potential introduction of zoonotic diseases into the transplant recipient. The term "xenosis" has been proposed to describe these unique xenogeneic infections: xenograft-derived infections with animal-derived infectious agents which are not recognized to cause human infection under natural conditions. Questions of public health risk include evaluation of such potential introduction or development of previously unknown human pathogens into the general population via xenotransplantation. The major "source" animals under consideration for use in organ procurement for xenotransplantation are non-human primates and swine. There are unique risks and benefits to each potential source species. It is possible, based on experience with allotransplants, to frame general microbiologic screening criteria applicable to the breeding of all potential "donor" species. The detection and cloning of a family porcine endogenous retroviruses infective for human cells, suggests that there is an, as yet, unquantifiable risk of xenogeneic infection for the xenograft recipient. It is likely that additional animal-derived human pathogens will be recognized. Significant microbiological benefits may also accrue via the relative resistance of non-human cells to many common human-derived pathogens. Development of a scientific basis for substantiating and quantifying the infectious risks and benefits associated with xenotransplantation is possible as the immunologic hurdles to successful clinical xenotransplantation are investigated.
Publication Types:
Keywords:
- Animals
- Breeding
- Cloning, Organism
- Communicable Diseases
- Humans
- Infection
- Primates
- Public Health
- Sus scrofa
- Swine
- Swine Diseases
- Transplantation, Heterologous
- genetics
- surgery
- transplantation
Other ID:
UI: 102246086
From Meeting Abstracts