WMCHealth Physician Reports on COVID-19’s Impact on Organ Transplant Recipients

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The Transplant Center team at Westchester Medical Center, the flagship of WMCHealth, successfully transplanted a liver to a patient who had recently recovered from COVID-19, demonstrating that appropriate prospective organ recipients who have recovered from this viral infection can be safely considered for organ transplantation.

The report detailing the transplant was published in the journal Transplant Infectious Disease, with Abhay Dhand, MD, Director, Transplant Infectious Diseases at Westchester Medical Center, as the report’s lead author.

“Transplanting organs in recently recovered COVID-19 patients can be challenging, and this was especially true during the earlier days of the pandemic, as we struggled to learn more about the virus and its resulting complications,” said Dr. Dhand. “In the end, we concluded that prospective liver recipients can and should be considered for transplantation after recovery from COVID-19, as long as the proper evaluation, donor selection and risk-benefit analysis is performed.”

Learn more about transplant services at Westchester Medical Center at WestchesterMedicalCenter.org/Transplant.