Removing Race from the Kidney Donor Risk Index
I had never heard of this. My son brought this to my attention a few years back. He was doing some research and found out some fascinating facts. (he is stage 5) He made numerous calls to different organizations about this.
For years, the KDRI formula unfairly penalized kidneys from African American donors, assigning them poorer organ function scores compared to those from other races. This practice not only dishonored POC but also countless patients awaiting life-saving transplants.
Well, we have good news. They just remove this race-based factor, along with the elimination of Hepatitis C status from the calculation. This will help to increase the number of kidneys available for transplantation.
I don't know about you, but I feel good. What are your thoughts on this, if any? Diane (Team Member)
"Removing the Black race variable had a negligible impact on the model's predictive ability. When the Black race variable was removed, the proportion of Black donors above KDPI 85%, a category with a higher risk of organ nonuse, declined from 31.09% to 17.75%, closer to the 15.68% above KDPI 85% among non-Black donors."
What do you think? Diane (Team Member)Many people wonder, does race matter in organ transplants? Although organ transplant candidates are not matched based on race or ethnicity and people of different ethnicities often match one another, transplant matches made within ethnic groups can be even more compatible and successful.
