Apples for Health- Older women have less transplant access

Older women have less transplant access

BALTIMORE, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Younger women have equivalent access to kidney transplants compared with their male counterparts, but older women do not, U.S. researchers said.

The study, scheduled to be published in the March issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology, found older U.S. women receive kidneys transplants much less frequently than older men.

Dr. Dorry Segev of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore and his colleagues discovered this by studying the U.S. Renal Data System, which collects, analyzes and distributes information about end-stage kidney disease in this country.

Their analysis included 563,197 patients with end-stage kidney disease diagnosed between 2000 and 2005.

The investigators found women ages 18 to 45 had access to transplantation that was equivalent to men, women ages 46 to 55 years had 3 percent less access, women ages 56 to 65 years had 15 percent less access, women ages 66 to 75 had 29 percent less access and women over 75 years had 59 percent less access.

Women had a similar or slightly higher survival benefit from transplantation compared with men, indicating that there is no reason to deny women transplants as they age, Segev's team said.