Study Suggests Federal Standard May Be Thwarting Some Transplant Patients

(By Michelle Andrews for Kaiser Health News)

For the roughly 15,000 people who need a liver transplant, it’s a waiting game. With demand for donated livers far outstripping supply, patients may spend months or years on a transplant waitlist, their position in the line gradually improving as they get sicker. A recent study suggests that this system may be changing but not necessarily for the better.

In an effort to get or keep a good performance rating from the federal government, transplant centers have been labeling some patients “too sick to transplant” and dropping from the waitlist some who may been viable candidates, the researchers found. In addition, despite removing more sick patients from the waiting list, one-year survival rates for patients who received transplants didn’t improve. Read article here…..

Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

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