WASHINGTON - Surgeons in Baltimore have performed what's thought to be the first kidney transplant from a living donor with HIV, a long-awaited milestone.Nina Martinez, a 35-year-old from Atlanta, traveled to Johns Hopkins University to donate to an HIV-positive stranger. She says she wanted to make a difference in someone else's life and counter stigma surrounding HIV infection.
Doctors only recently began transplanting organs from deceased donors who had HIV into HIV-positive recipients. Hopkins says it's time to try HIV-positive living donation because newer HIV treatments are less likely to harm a donor's remaining kidney.
Hopkins says donor and recipient are recovering well. Experts say if more HIV-positive patients had a living donor, it could free up space on the nation's transplant waiting list.