Gender Bias in Kidney Transplants

According to a recent online report that will be published shortly in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, women over the age of 45 who need a kidney transplant are less likely to get one than men of the same age. This despite the fact that they are no sicker than the men and would benefit just as much as the men by having a kidney transplant.

So why the bias against older women? The researchers aren’t sure, but they speculate that women may be seen as more frail than they actually are by whoever makes the decision to put (or not to put) a female patient on the deceased-donor waiting list or to help them find a live donor. Or, perhaps the women themselves think they are less likely to survive the surgery or benefit from the transplant. But if its not true, women and their families will need to know that.

The issue of how we allocate scarce organs like kidneys is discussed in Human Biology 5th ed., pp. 368-369.

Future REFERENCE: Segev, Dorry et al: "Age and Comorbidities are Effect Modifiers of Gender Disparities in Renal Transplantation". J. Am. Soc. Nephrol. 000:00-00, 2009.