Although the benefits of kidney transplant are similar for sickle cell patients and those with kidney failure due to other causes, a new study suggests that sickle cell patients are much less likely to receive organs.
Researchers examined data collected from 1998 to 2017 on two cohorts of patients with kidney failure. The first group, a “dialysis cohort,” included 1,970 patients with sickle cell and 2.05 million patients with kidney failure from other causes. The second group, a “waitlist cohort,” included 507 sickle cell patients and 463,298 with kidney failure due to other conditions who were placed on transplant waiting lists.
Compared to the control groups of patients with kidney failure attributed to other conditions, the patients with sickle cell were significantly more likely to experience dialysis mortality (adjusted hazard ratio 2.14), waitlist mortality (aHR 3.21), and post-transplant mortality (aHR 3.03), researchers report in CJASN.