Researchers found the system that distributes lung transplants may favor patients based on geographical location, according to a study published in the American Journal of Transplantation.
Four things to know:
1. Researchers at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine conducted the initial study in 2015, according to Science Daily.
"Patients everywhere suffer from donor shortages, and we all want to do whatever is possible to most efficiently allocate organs to the sickest people most likely to benefit and survive," said Errol Bush, MD, surgical director of the Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program at the Baltimore, Md.-based Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
2. Researchers performed a new analysis and found there was an emphasis on where U.S. patients lived that may have unintentionally overshadowed how sick a patient was or how a patient would benefit from being an organ recipient.
"The data told us that where transplant candidates live unfortunately had (and continues to have) a huge impact on the probability of receiving a transplant," said Martin Kosztowski, MD, a research fellow at Johns Hopkins and the first author of the study. "And it means that patients who have the resources to travel to a different donor service area (DSA) or list at multiple centers are at an advantage."
3. For the study, researchers analyzed data including patients' lung allocation scores — the number used to determine transplant priority — and different donor service area scores before the United Network for Organ Sharing changed its organ policy so lung donations were offered to the highest-ranking candidate within 250 nautical miles, rather than donor service area boundaries.
4. Researchers found, on average, there was a 2.05-fold difference between lung transplant rates in any two donor service areas, meaning moving between donor service areas has more of an effect on how organ donations are distributed than does lung allocation score.
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