Kenneth Teasley, HIV-positive with end-stage renal disease, had been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant for five years. He learned from The Mount Sinai Hospital in the spring of 2016 about his eligibility for an organ from another HIV-positive patient. Mount Sinai was the first hospital in New York State and only the second in the country approved to perform kidney and liver transplants from a deceased HIV-positive donor to an HIV-positive recipient.
Here is his story:
“I was originally diagnosed with HIV in 1993. Then a couple months later, I was diagnosed with CKD at 23 percent,” Kenneth says. “I basically thought I had two years to live.”
CKD or Chronic Kidney Disease is a condition characterized by gradual loss of kidney function over time. Kenneth’s kidneys were functioning at only 23 percent of capacity. After years of suffering, Kenneth began three times a week dialysis treatment sessions.
“It was very hard for me at the beginning. And all you want to do is go to sleep. I was also having issues with my blood pressure,” he says. “I actually fell once, really bad, and that’s actually how they found the stroke that I had earlier that year.”
Kenneth remained on dialysis for five years.
Sander S. Florman, MD: “He’s going to have a much better quality of life, and he’s going to live longer thanks to the gift of organ transplantation.”
“When you’re on dialysis your chances of having a heart attack or a stroke go up dramatically. In fact, most of the people who are on dialysis will die of a heart attack or a stroke,” says Sander S. Florman, MD, Director of The Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai and Charles Miller, MD Professor of Surgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “If you’re lucky enough to get a transplant that risk goes way down.”
Kenneth was placed on the transplant waiting list. But for HIV patients the wait was typically much longer than for those without disease.
“Mount Sinai was a big enroller in an NIH-sponsored trial offering transplants to very carefully selected people with HIV,” says Dr. Florman. “And it turns out, very counter-intuitively, that the medicines that we use for transplant to prevent rejection work synergistically, work right alongside with the medicines that are used to treat HIV. They did well, and this opened the door.”
Kenneth Teasley: “I think I can do anything now. I guess I could be Superman.”
After the surgery, “his kidney function was normal right away and he didn’t have any complications,” says Antonios Arvelakis, MD, MPH, Transplant Surgeon at the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute and Assistant Professor of Surgery at the School of Medicine. “Being able to offer an HIV patient the organ of an HIV donor, I’m pretty sure it’s going to help move forward the approach of the treatment for HIV patients.”
Adds Dr. Florman: “He’s going to have a much better quality of life, and he’s going to live longer thanks to the gift of organ transplantation. I couldn’t be more proud of Mount Sinai and of my team’s efforts to offer transplant to HIV because when it comes to transplanting people with HIV there’s a lot of stigma still and a lot of places talk ‘yes’ but very few places do ‘yes.’”
After a week in the hospital, Kenneth returned home.
“I finally realized that I actually can do anything, and it’s not what’s put on you, it’s what you do with it,” he says. “I think I can do anything now. I guess I could be Superman.”