Effects of High-Risk Kidneys on Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients Program Quality Reports

J. J. Snyder, N. Salkowski, A. Wey, A. K. Israni, J. D. Schold, D. L. Segev, B. L. Kasiske

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

43 Scopus citations

Abstract

There is a perception that transplanting high-risk kidneys causes programs to be identified as underperforming, thereby increasing the frequency of discards and diminishing access to transplant. Thus, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) has considered excluding transplants using kidneys from donors with high Kidney Donor Profile Index (KDPI) scores (≥0.85) when assessing program performance. We examined whether accepting high-risk kidneys (KDPI ≥0.85) for transplant yields worse outcome evaluations. Despite a clear relationship between KDPI and graft failure and mortality, there was no relationship between a program's use of high-KDPI kidneys and poor performance evaluations after risk adjustment. Excluding high-KDPI donor transplants from the June 2015 evaluations did not alter the programs identified as underperforming, because in every case underperforming programs also had worse-than-expected outcomes among lower-risk donor transplants. Finally, we found that hypothetically accepting and transplanting additional kidneys with KDPI similar to that of kidneys currently discarded would not adversely affect program evaluations. Based on the study findings, there is no evidence that programs that accept higher-KDPI kidneys are at greater risk for low performance evaluations, and risk aversion may limit access to transplant for candidates while providing no measurable benefit to program evaluations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2646-2653
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican Journal of Transplantation
Volume16
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 1 2016

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
The authors thank Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients colleague Nan Booth, MSW, MPH, ELS, for manuscript preparation and editing. This work was conducted under the auspices of the Minneapolis Medical Research Foundation, contractor for the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, as a deliverable under contract number HHSH250201500009 (US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Healthcare Systems Bureau, Division of Transplantation). As a US Government?sponsored work, there are no restrictions on its use. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the US Government.

Publisher Copyright:
Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA

Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN)
  • Scientific Registry for Transplant Recipients (SRTR)
  • clinical research/practice
  • donors and donation: deceased
  • kidney transplantation/nephrology
  • organ acceptance
  • organ procurement and allocation

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