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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Changes in how donor livers are allocated to patients may be hurting women.
New research from Duke University Medical Center finds blacks have been getting more equal access to liver transplants as whites since 2002, but women are now the ones less likely to get the lifesaving procedure.
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The Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) system has been used by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) since February, 2002 -- it emphasizes the severity of the disease instead of the length of time on a waiting list.
Researchers looked at more than 45,000 patients who were waiting for liver transplants before and after the system was changed. They found women were less likely than men to get a transplant within three years of being put on the list under both the old and new systems.
Sex differences persist despite the use of MELD, write the authors. Whether these differences result from true anatomic differences or represent a problem not addressed by the use of the MELD score mandates further investigation. The use of the MELD score allocation system appears to have reduced at least racial disparity in liver transplantation. We hope that ongoing investigations and refinements of MELD can provide even greater equity in the allocation of this precious resource.
SOURCE: JAMA, 2008;300:2371-2378
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