Geographic variance in access to renal transplantation in Australia

Difficult conversations: Australian Indigenous patients' views on kidney transplantation

Background

Indigenous Australians suffer a disproportionate burden of end stage kidney disease (ESKD) but are significantly less likely to receive a transplant. This study explores Indigenous ESKD patients’ views on transplantation as a treatment option.

Methods

The Improving Access to Kidney Transplants (IMPAKT) research program investigated barriers to kidney transplantation for Indigenous Australians. An interview study, conducted in 2005–2006, elicited illness experience narratives from 146 Indigenous patients, including views on transplant. Interviews were conducted at 26 sites that collectively treat the majority of Indigenous ESKD patients. Key themes were identified via team consensus meetings, providing a flexible framework and focus for continued coding.

Results

Four inter-related themes were identified in patient commentary: a very high level (90% of respondents) of positive interest in transplantation; patients experienced a range of communication difficulties and felt uninformed about transplant; family involvement in decision-making was constrained by inadequate information; and patients needed to negotiate cultural and social sensitivities around transplantation.

Conclusions

Indigenous ESKD patients demonstrated an intense interest in transplantation preferring deceased over living kidney donation. Patients believe transplant is the path most likely to support the re-establishment of their ‘normal’ family life. Patients described themselves as poorly informed; most had only a rudimentary knowledge of the notion of transplant but no understanding of eligibility criteria, the transplant procedure and associated risks. Patients experienced multiple communication barriers that - taken together - undermine their engagement in treatment decision-making. Families and communities are disempowered because they also lack information to reach a shared understanding of transplantation. Cultural sensitivities associated with transplantation were described but these did not appear to constrain patients in making choices about their own health.

Transplant units and local treatment providers should collaborate to develop user-friendly, culturally informed and region-specific patient education programs. Quality improvement cycles should underpin the development of national guidelines for patient education.

Noting Indigenous patients’ intense interest in transplantation, and nephrologists’ concerns regarding poor transplant outcomes, research should prioritise exploring the predictors of transplant outcomes for Indigenous Australians.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12882-017-0726-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Individual and regional factors of access to the renal transplant waiting list in france in a cohort of dialyzed patients

Several studies have investigated geographical variations in access to renal transplant waiting lists, but none has assessed the impact on these variations of factors at both the patient and geographic levels. The objective of our study was to identify medical and non-medical factors at both these levels associated with these geographical variations in waiting-list placement in France. We included all incident patients aged 18-80 years in 11 French regions who started dialysis between January 1, 2006, and December 31, 2008. Both a multilevel Cox model with shared frailty and a competing risks model were used for the analyses. At the patient level, old age, comorbidities, diabetic nephropathy, non-autonomous first dialysis, and female gender were the major determinants of a lower probability of being waitlisted. At the regional level, the only factor associated with this probability was an increase in the number of patients on the waiting list from 2005 to 2009. This finding supports a slight but significant impact of a regional organ shortage on waitlisting practices. Our findings demonstrate that patients' age has a major impact on waitlisting practices, even for patients with no comorbidity or disability, whose survival would likely be improved by transplantation compared with dialysis.

Excellent outcomes of simultaneous pancreas kidney transplantation in patients from rural and urban Australia: a national service experience

BACKGROUND

Simultaneous pancreas and kidney (SPK) transplantation is performed to restore normoglycemia and renal function in patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus and end-stage renal failure. The National Pancreas Transplant Unit (NPTU) in Sydney provides a service to a population spread across 7.4 million km. We aimed to see if SPK transplantation outcomes differed between recipients from metropolitan (M) centers and those from nonmetropolitan (NM) regions.

METHODS

Using a prospectively collected database, patient and graft survival were analyzed. Patients were categorized according to region of residence and by distance from the NPTU.

RESULTS

Between January 2001 and May 2010, 165 patients underwent first-time SPK transplantation at the NPTU. There were 126 M and 39 NM recipients. Median distance from the NPTU was 732 km for donors (range, 0-3930 km) and 887 km for recipients (range, 1-4114 km). Median follow-up was 5.2 years (range, 1.1-10.3 years). Actuarial 5-year patient survival was 94% in M and 95% in NM groups. At 5 years, non-death-censored pancreas graft survival was 75% and 82% among M and NM patients, respectively, while kidney allograft survival was 88% in M and 92% in NM groups. There was no significant difference in patient and graft survival between groups. Distance of donor and recipient from the NPTU did not influence graft or patient survival.

CONCLUSIONS

SPK transplantation can be performed with excellent outcomes at a national center with a vast catchment area, irrespective of donor or recipient location.

[Organ transplantation in Brazilian States: effectiveness, productivity, and capacity]

This study focused on key aspects of organ transplantation programs in various States of Brazil. The study showed wide disparities between States, based on various performance indicators. States in the South, Southeast, and Midwest regions had the highest transplantation and productivity rates and the largest per capita transplantation teams. São Paulo proved to be a benchmark due to its high performance on several indicators.

Geographic variation in end-stage renal disease incidence and access to deceased donor kidney transplantation

The effect of demand for kidney transplantation, measured by end-stage renal disease (ESRD) incidence, on access to transplantation is unknown. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network/Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (OPTN/SRTR) from 2000 to 2008, we performed donation service area (DSA) and patient-level regression analyses to assess the effect of ESRD incidence on access to the kidney waiting list and deceased donor kidney transplantation. In DSAs, ESRD incidence increased with greater density of high ESRD incidence racial groups (African Americans and Native Americans). Wait-list and transplant rates were relatively lower in high ESRD incidence DSAs, but wait-list rates were not drastically affected by ESRD incidence at the patient level. Compared to low ESRD areas, high ESRD areas were associated with lower adjusted transplant rates among all ESRD patients (RR 0.68, 95% CI 0.66-0.70). Patients living in medium and high ESRD areas had lower transplant rates from the waiting list compared to those in low ESRD areas (medium: RR 0.68, 95% CI 0.66-0.69; high: RR 0.63, 95% CI 0.61-0.65). Geographic variation in access to kidney transplant is in part mediated by local ESRD incidence, which has implications for allocation policy development.

Disparidades nas filas para transplantes de órgãos nos estados brasileiros

Avaliamos alguns aspectos dos transplantes de órgãos nas Unidades da Federação brasileira, nos anos de 2004, 2005 e 2006. Estimamos, com base em um modelo de teoria das filas, os tempos de espera para transplantes de coração, córnea, fígado, pulmão, rim, pâncreas, e transplante simultâneo de rim e pâncreas. Os resultados indicam redução na espera por alguns órgãos (córnea, e pâncreas); elevação em outros (fígado, coração, rim/pâncreas); e ligeiras flutuações, sem tendência muito definida, nos transplantes de rim e nos transplantes de pulmão ao longo do período estudado. Os estados das regiões Sul e Sudeste (com a exceção do Rio de Janeiro) e Centro-oeste têm os menores tempos de espera e as maiores taxas de atendimento do país.