Incidence of HIV antibody-positive eye/cornea donors in hospital versus medical examiner cases.

We retrospectively examined Michigan Eye-Bank and Transplantation Center data on all eye/cornea donors in Michigan and Illinois for whom human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) antibody screening results were available. This was done to compare the HIV-antibody positive serology rate in hospital versus medical examiner donors. This population consisted of 3,783 donor records for the period January 1, 1986 through June 30, 1988--a 30-month period. Of these, 2,628 records were from hospital donors, and 1,155 were medical examiner cases. Of the 2,628 hospital donors, 22 (or 0.83%) tested positive for HIV antibody. Ten of the 1,155 medical examiner donors (or 0.87%) tested positive for HIV antibody. We examined donor demographics of gender, race, age, positive hepatitis B surface antigen, and residence for each group. The difference in the HIV antibody-positive rate between the two groups--hospital and medical examiner donors--is 0.04%, with a slightly higher rate in the medical examiner group. The chi-square was 0.0079, and the p-value was 0.928. We conclude that this difference is neither clinically nor statistically significant.