3,500 donor kidneys are discarded every year, study finds

About 3,500 donor kidneys are discarded annually in the U.S., despite more than 90,000 Americans currently sitting on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, according to a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine and cited by CNN.

For the study, researchers assessed the use of 156,089 deceased donor kidneys in the U.S. and 29,984 in France between 2004 and 2014 using data from validated registries.

Researchers found 17 percent of kidneys were discarded in the U.S., compared to just 9 percent in France. They also noted that the number of discarded kidneys has increased since 2014, when the analysis ended. In 2016, about 20 percent of all donated kidneys were discarded.

"The leading explanations for the high rate of kidney discard include the intense regulatory scrutiny of U.S. transplant programs, which may lose credentials if their one-year death and graft failure outcomes exceed predicted outcomes," researchers wrote.

Many transplant centers may be hesitant to use older or less-than-perfect kidneys for fear of these poor outcomes. Transplants involving donor kidneys in worse conditions are also more expensive, since a patient often requires a longer hospitalization period.

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