A new federally funded study examining the possible risks of organ donation by marijuana users found no indication that recent cannabis use increases the likelihood of significant side effects in the year immediately after a transplant—even as many healthcare providers continue to restrict transplants from cannabis consumers.
Findings of the research, which looked at rates of infections, transplant failures and deaths among recipients, “suggest that organs from donors with a history of recent marijuana use do not pose significant infectious risks in the early posttransplant period.”
Despite the concern that donor exposure to marijuana increases the risk of fungal infection in recipients, the study found that a donor history of marijuana use did not increase the likelihood of donor culture positivity (including respiratory cultures, nor the risk of early recipient bacterial or fungal infection, graft failure, or death posttransplant. Analyzing data from hundreds of organ transplants, researchers assessed three primary outcomes: whether cultures from donors themselves tested positive for bacterial or fungal infection, whether organ recipients developed new bacterial or invasive fungal infections and whether the transplant resulted in either graft failure or the recipient’s death. For each outcome, they found no significant increase in risk involving donors with a history of recent cannabis use.
