Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Vol 153, No. 3, Mar 1996, 1166-1168.
Transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to recipients of single lung transplants from the same donor
AL Ridgeway, GS Warner, P Phillips, MS Forshag, DC McGiffin, JW Harden, RH Harris, WH Benjamin Jr, GL Zorn Jr and NE Dunlap
Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, USA.
Recipients of organ transplants are at increased risk for infection both
because of immunosuppression and because of the transfer of microbes
through the donor organs. We report two cases of M. tuberculosis disease in
recipients of single lung transplants who shared a common donor. Both
recipients developed pulmonary tuberculosis, one having fever and pulmonary
infiltrates and the other having subclinical disease with M. tuberculosis
organisms being recovered from bronchoalveolar lavage. Restriction fragment
length polymorphism analysis on both isolates of M. tuberculosis revealed a
common source. The donor of both lungs had a normal chest radiograph and no
known prior history of M. tuberculosis infection of disease. These cases
are the first report of two single lung recipients developing pulmonary
tuberculosis from a common donor.
