{"id":167779,"date":"2017-04-07T22:17:39","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T22:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/kidney-transplant-vouchers-could-address-timing-issues\/"},"modified":"2017-04-07T22:17:39","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T22:17:39","slug":"kidney-transplant-vouchers-could-address-timing-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/kidney-transplant-vouchers-could-address-timing-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Kidney transplant vouchers could address timing issues"},"content":{"rendered":"


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(Reuters Health) – – Creating kidney transplant vouchers for future transplants could reduce the long waiting list for organs in the United States, a new study suggests.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In particular, a voucher program could help with \u201cchronological incompatibility,\u201d when the donor wants to provide a kidney but the patient doesn\u2019t need it yet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInnovative solutions to increasing living donation are always needed because of the high level of need for living donor kidneys,\u201d said study author Amy Waterman, director of the Transplant Research and Education Center at the University of California at Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

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More than 100,000 patients are on the waiting list in the United States, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing. <\/p>\n

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\u201cLiving donors are rare and very valuable for improving the health of recipients,\u201d Waterman told Reuters Health by email. \u201cStrategies to allow more living donors to overcome practical challenges to help another should be supported.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In a report in the journal Transplantation, Waterman and colleagues described three voucher cases that allowed donors to overcome chronological incompatibility for recipients who didn\u2019t yet need a kidney but might need one in the future. The three cases also triggered a donation chain that allowed 25 transplants to occur across the U.S.<\/p>\n

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In the first case, a four-year-old with chronic kidney disease was projected to need a renal transplant in 10 to 15 years. His 64-year-old grandfather wanted to donate a kidney when his grandson needed it but didn\u2019t want his candidacy as a donor to disappear as he aged. <\/p>\n

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The National Kidney Registry Medical Board allowed the grandfather to donate his kidney now for his grandson to receive priority for another kidney in the future when he needed it. The board stipulated that the voucher had no monetary value, could only be used for his grandson, couldn\u2019t be transferred to another patient, and couldn\u2019t guarantee that a kidney would be available. <\/p>\n

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In December 2014, the grandfather donated his kidney, which triggered a transplant chain with three recipients who were able to discontinue dialysis. The grandson hasn\u2019t needed the voucher yet.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis began developing based on requests from patients,\u201d said Stuart Flechner of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, who wasn\u2019t involved with this study. Flechner studies kidney-paired donations. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a way to capture donors who might otherwise not have donated if it went through the usual sequencing,\u201d he told Reuters Health. \u201cIt\u2019s based on an individual\u2019s desire to donate now so a loved one can receive another kidney later.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In the second case, a 10-year-old girl underwent a kidney transplant in 2007. Although it went well, her 52-year-old father wanted to donate a kidney several years later as a \u201cback-up\u201d in case she needed it. He wanted to use a voucher to donate the kidney before he got too old. In 2015, he donated a kidney, which triggered a chain of eight transplants. <\/p>\n

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The third case involved the same patient from the second case. Her doctors believed she might require a third transplant in the future to avoid dialysis, so the girl\u2019s 60-year-old aunt also donated a kidney in 2016. The donation initiated a chain of 14 kidney transplants and provided a second voucher for her niece.<\/p>\n

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When adopting use of vouchers, transplant centers must consider the effects of redemptions and guard against the potential for gaming the system, the study authors say. For example, if recipients don\u2019t need the transplant or die first from other causes, the voucher can’t be sold or traded. <\/p>\n

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At the same time, a voucher system could motivate family members to donate out of altruism now rather than hold back in case their loved ones need a kidney in the future. <\/p>\n

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\u201cThe more transplants we can arrange, the more people we can help,\u201d said Blake Ellison of Harvard Law School in Boston, who wasn\u2019t involved with this study. Ellison has researched kidney-paired donations and the U.S. model.<\/p>\n

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\u201cVouchers remove some of the barriers to donation . . . as a result, donated kidneys will not only be more plentiful, but healthier, too,\u201d he told Reuters Health. \u201cMatching systems are such that increasing the number of kidneys to be matched results in more matches and better matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

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SOURCE: bit.ly\/2oKMoxx<\/a> Transplantation, online March 22, 2017.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Reuters Health) – – Creating kidney transplant vouchers for future transplants could reduce the long waiting list for organs in the United States, a new study suggests. In particular, a voucher program could help with \u201cchronological incompatibility,\u201d when the donor wants to provide a kidney but the patient doesn\u2019t need it yet. \u201cInnovative solutions to Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}