Male to female kidney transplants 'more likely to fail'

[okarol]

Male to female kidney transplants 'more likely to fail'

By Kate Devlin Medical Correspondent
Last updated: 2:01 PM BST 03/07/2008

Kidney transplants are significantly more likely to fail if the organ is given from a man to a woman, new research shows.

The chance that donated kidneys will be rejected is almost a tenth higher if the organ is taken from a man and transplanted into a woman than with any other combination of the sexes, according to a study.

Scientists say the problem is so serious that the gender of patients and donors should be considered in future operations with women receiving organs from other women wherever possible.

More than 2,000 kidney transplants are carried out in Britain every year, and more than 400 patients die annually while waiting for an organ to become available.

A study of more than 195,000 transplants carried out in 400 centres across Europe between 1985 and 2004 shows that gender can substantially affect whether the operation will be successful.

The findings, published in the Lancet medical journal, show that compared to other combinations of genders, transplanting a male kidney into a woman was 8 per cent more likely to fail within the first year and 6 per cent more likely between two and ten years after surgery.

Failure can lead to death or years of dialysis while a patient waits for another kidney to be found.

Scientists believe the increased risk of failure could be the effect of a specific male chromosome which produces a reaction which can cause the kidney to be rejected by a woman's immune system.

The effect has previously been noticed in transplant operations involving stem cells.

Professor Alois Gratwohl, from University Hospital Basel, Switzerland, who led the study with researchers from the Collaborative Transplant Study in Heidelberg, Germany, said the study showed that gender "should be integrated into future prospective analyses and decisions on organ allocation."

However, writing in the same journal, Dr Connie L Davis, from the University of Washington, in Seattle, said: "A lot of work still needs to be done on the actual (causes) and the immunological responses that might be associated with rejection.

"However, the science is still too premature to suggest that allocation schemes from dead donors or selection of living donors for transplantation take notice of this effect, in view of the good long-term success with sex-mismatched (transplants) and the limited access to organs."

Kidney transplants have been successfully performed since 1954, and they paved the way for the development of other organ transplants including of the liver and the heart.

Story from Telegraph News:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2240949/Male-to-female-kidney-transplants-%27more-likely-to-fail%27.html

[Chris]

If this was implimented, how much would it effect the waiting time for women. Not to mention it should be a choice if they would want it if given proper facts. If someone has been on the list for a long time, why make them wait longer, give them the choice.

Further researcher needed though.

[stauffenberg]

Interestingly, it has long been known that kidney transplants from male donors tend to survive longer than those from female donors.  I wonder whether the 10% reduction in viability discussed here is a reduction from the greater lifespan normally found in male kidneys or from the general lifespan of all transplanted kidneys.

[Treasure]

Man, I don't think I'm ever going to catch a <kidney> break!  The wait time for O's in my area is really long. Even longer if I have to wait for an "Af-Am" kidney...and now it's iffy getting one from a male? javascript:void(0);
rant

Ok....I'm done now. <singing> The waiting is the hardest part....

[twirl]

my mother got a transplant from a 19 year old male auto accident victim
we used to tease her and say she was going to have to pee pee standing up
but she did not survive
the really amazing thing is years later I had a student in my class that had a kidney transplant
on the same day in the same hospital
from the same age and sex victim as my mom's
and I had her parents as my first high school students
and I remembered them
it is a small world