Study determines when racial disparities begin in transplant process
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Research presented at the ASN Kidney Week showed that although Black patients were more likely to be referred for transplantation, they were less likely than white patients to advance to subsequent stages in the process.
“Before receiving a transplant, a patient must be referred to a transplant center, undergo extensive clinical evaluation and then be placed on a wait list,” Steven M. Brunelli, MD, MSCE, of DaVita Clinical Research, and colleagues wrote in a poster. “Previous studies have observed that Black patients are less likely to receive kidney transplants than white patients. However, it is unclear at which points in the transplant process inequity is imparted.”
For the study, Brunelli and colleagues assessed 60,229 individuals who began dialysis treatments between July 2015 to June 2018.
“We found that Black patients were actually more likely to be referred to a transplant center after starting dialysis, compared with white patients; however, they were less likely to be waitlisted for a transplant after referral, and less likely to receive a transplant once waitlisted,” Brunelli said in a related press release.
More specifically, the researchers determined that although Black patients were 23% more likely to be referred for transplant than white patients, Black patients were 19% less likely to be placed on a waitlist once referred. In addition, among those who were waitlisted, Black patients were 52% less likely to undergo transplantation compared with white patients.
“Racial disparities seem to emerge beginning at the listing stage and carry through the organ allocation stage,” Brunelli said in the release.
Collapse
Brunelli SM, et al. Paper SU-OR42. Presented at: ASN Kidney Week. Oct. 22-25, 2020 (virtual meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts