Kidney transplantation

NEW YORK, August 15 (Praxis Press). Among kidney transplantation candidates in the United States, men are more likely than women to receive a new kidney, a disparity that may be related to differences in financial status. Schaubel and colleagues compared kidney transplantation rates for 20,131 men and 13,458 women undergoing dialysis in Canada, where sex-specific differences in income and insurance were assumed to be irrelevant. Adjusted kidney transplantation rates were 20% higher for men than for women; the disparity was greater for cadaveric transplants (23%) than for living donor transplants (10%). The five-year probabilities of transplantation in men and women were 47% and 39%, respectively (p < 0.001). The gap in transplantation rates increased with age, and was less prominent in white and Asian patients and more prominent in black, Asian Indian, and North American Indian patients. Sex differences in kidney transplantation rates persist independent of patients' financial status; greater ...