SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – Despite increased improvements in research, medicine and healthcare, inequities still remain. When it comes to patients with chronic kidney disease, it can be a long and difficult journey.
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Various factors determine when and how a patient with chronic kidney disease gets on a waitlist for a transplant. Up until last year, a race modifier was used, which could delay treatment or position on a waitlist.
Dr. Elaine Ku, Associate Professor at UCSF's Department of Medicine, specializes in nephrology and is on a mission to eliminate the disparities in kidney transplantation.
Ku told KCBS Radio's "As Prescribed" that the reasons for racial disparities in organ transplant waitlists are multifactorial.
"Our work has focused on one particular factor that could be contributing to some of the racial disparities and wait listing that we've seen in kidney transplantation. We've primarily really focused on policy surrounding wait listing that may influence how much wait time any individual can accumulate before they start dialysis," she explained.
Ku said the healthcare industry can increase equity in kidney transplantation by removing the racial modifier previously calculated for Black patients. “Our prior work showed that using race-inclusive estimating equations would potentially reduce a wait time that a Black patient could accumulate by 30% compared with a white patient,” Ku said.
In 2021, a national policy was changed, requiring clinical providers to use a race-free estimating equation when registering chronic kidney disease patients on a waitlist.
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