Every year about 17,000 people are put on the transplant waiting list for a kidney. Less than half of those people will actually receive the organ. The average wait time is between three to five years. Now a new study shows older women are less likely to be put on the waiting list for a kidney compared to men.
Why the difference?
Scientists at Johns Hopkins say there are two main steps to put someone on the waiting list: a referral from a doctor and the patient’s willingness to go forward with the procedure to battle kidney disease. One expert believes the gap is the result of what he calls an unsubstantiated “perceived frailty” of woman that factors subconsciously into the listing process.
“It appears as though either the nephrologist believes women have a worse chance of survival or some women don’t think they will have a good outcome,” says lead researcher and Johns Hopkins transplant surgeon Dorry Segev, M.D. “Once they are listed, however, woman and men have an equal chance of getting a kidney, regardless of age.”
The facts
Segev says the number show as a woman ages her chances of being added to the kidney transplant list diminish. “The likelihood that women age 18 to 45 years made it onto the transplant list was equivalent to that of men. Women ages 46 to 55 were 3 percent less likely to be put on the list, women ages 56 to 65 years were 15 percent less likely, women ages 66 to 75 were 29 percent less likely, and women 75 or older were 59 percent less likely.”
The problem gets worse with age
“As woman age, that discrepancy widens to the point where woman over 75 are less than half as likely as men to be placed on a kidney transplant list,” says lead Segev, M.D. “If the women have multiple illnesses, the discrepancy is even worse.”
