Xenotransplantation: Public Health Risks¡ªPatient vs. Society in an Emerging Field

Abstract

Xenotransplantation is a public health concern because it has the potential to infect human recipients with zoonotic and other infectious agents that are not endemic in human populations, thereby potentially introducing new infections to the human community. From this perspective, xenotransplantation clinical trials combine a potential benefit for individual recipients with a potential risk to the human community. However, the potential for benefit also extends beyond the individual recipient to society as a whole, a fact infrequently recognized in discussions of this topic. Further, diseases neither endemic in human communities nor recognized as classic zoonoses are introduced into humans periodically through routine interactions between human and nonhuman animals. Thus, xenotransplantation is one of multiple potential routes by which infectious agents of nonhuman origin may enter human ecosystems. The intentional and controlled nature of xenotransplantation exposures enables implementation of measures to minimize associated biohazards. Development of guidelines and implementation of regulatory oversight of xenotransplantation clinical trials in most nations where such research occurs has promoted a standard level of practice in the field and markedly reduced the risk of xenotransplant-introduced infection compared to the situation in 1995.