Comparison of the risk of viral infection between the living and nonliving musculoskeletal tissue donors in Australia

Screening of musculoskeletal tissue donors with nucleic acid testing (NAT) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) has been implemented in the United States and other developed nations. However, in contrast to the donor demographics in the United States, the majority of Australian musculoskeletal tissue donations are primarily from living surgical donors. The objective of our study was to determine and compare the risk of viral infection associated with musculoskeletal tissue donation from living and nonliving donors in Australia. We studied serum samples from 12 415 consecutive musculoskeletal tissue donors between 1993 and 2004. This included 10 937 surgical donations, and 1478 donations obtained from postmortem organ donation patients and cadaveric donors. Current mandatory retesting of surgical donors 6 months postdonation reduces the risk of viral infection by approximately 95% by eliminating almost all donors in the window period. The addition of nucleic acid amplification testing for nonliving donors would similarly reduce the window period, and consequently the residual risk by approximately 50% for hepatitis B virus, 55% for HIV, and 90% for HCV. NAT, using appropriately validated assays for nonliving donors, would reduce the residual risk to levels comparable to that in living donors (where the 95% reduction for quarantining pending the 180-day re-test is included).