Minority (Type B) kidney transplants could increase with new option

[kickingandscreaming]

Minority kidney transplants could increase with new option


January 31, 2019

Kidney transplant recipients are now benefiting from donor organs that do not match their blood type but are compatible and just as safe, according to a Vanderbilt University Medical Center study in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

The study's finding is significant because roughly 15 percent of the population has blood type B, which is more common in African-Americans, and those patients have historically been transplanted at lower rates due to a lack of available organs.

The Vanderbilt study shows that blood type B patients can receive blood type A2 kidneys with similar outcomes.

Lead author David Shaffer, MD, professor of Surgery and Chief of Kidney and Pancreas Transplant, said more than 400 of the roughly 1,000 patients on the Vanderbilt waitlist for a kidney are African-Americans.]

More at link: https://www.brightsurf.com/news/article/013119475226/minority-kidney-transplants-could-increase-with-new-option.html

[iolaire]

That's good.