Comment on “Epidemiological and clinical characteristics of heart transplant recipients during the 2019 coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China” by Ren et al

The study by Ren et al1 suggests that heart transplant recipients (HTR) do not have a substantially higher rate of coronavirus disease 2019 infection than the general population. This finding is not surprising because immunosuppressive treatment used in HTR favors specific viral infections such as cytomegalovirus or herpes simplex virus infections much more than community-acquired respiratory viruses. For instance, there were only 3 lung infections owing to influenza among 1,073 infectious episodes that occurred in 620 consecutive patients with heart transplantation at Stanford Medical Center between December 1980 and June 1996.
Source: The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation - Category: Transplant Surgery Authors: Tags: CASE ANECDOTES, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS Source Type: research