Asian and black patients 'less likely to have successful kidney transplants'

BLACK and Asian people are less likely to have a successful kidney transplant when compared to their white peers, a study has found.

The study was carried out by the doctors at St James's University Hospital in Leeds where 20,000 kidney transplants were analysed. The ethnicity of both the donor and recipient were known by the researchers.

The findings revealed that four out of five white people (81 per cent) who received a kidney from a white donor were still healthy seven years later with the organ also working fine.

But the figures dropped to 70.6 per cent for Asian donors and patients, and 69.2 per cent for black-to-black transplants.

Moreover, the study show kidney received from white donors have a better success rate when given to a person of different ethnicity. Also, there are cases when the kidneys from deceased white persons are functioning perfectly (80.5 per cent) after seven years, irrespective of the recipient's ethnicity.

On the other hand, the success rate drops to 71.9 and 74 per cent for Asian and black donors, respectively.

According to Abdul Rahman Hakeem, a consultant hepatobiliary and transplant surgeon in Leeds, and also the lead author of the study - black, Asian and ethnic minority people have worse odds of finding a match.

“In our study, Asian people make up 12.4 per cent of deceased donor recipients and black people 6.7 per cent of recipients, yet Asian people account for 1.6 per cent of all donors and black people 1.2 per cent of donors.

“Increased deceased donation among ethnic minority communities would benefit the entire recipient pool by increasing the numbers of available organs and may specifically benefit the Asian and black recipients,” he said.

The results of the new study were also presented at the recent European Society for Organ Transplantation Congress 2021.