Life
Time for kidney transplant, treatment longer for African Americans – Study
“I would certainly not advocate postponing dialysis in the hope of getting a transplant without getting dialyzed,” said Dr. Titte Srinivas, the head of transplant nephrology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, who also wasn’t part of the research team.
For a patient who needs it, “A short duration of dialysis is not really detrimental to health.”
Srinivas told reporters what’s most important is for anyone diagnozed with renal failure to get on the kidney transplant list as quickly as possible.
Health care reform could make that easier for some people, Grams noted, as more low-income patients will have access to insurance – and the transplant list.
“People don’t realize that insurance makes such a huge difference,” she said.
Keith said aside from the insurance issue, researchers are still grappling with how to distribute kidneys of all different qualities, from all different types of donors, to the people who need them most.
“We should be trying to make the system as fair as possible, and to limit disparities as much as possible,” he said. “The question is how to do it.”
