Overcoming the Blues: Can Managing Depressive Symptoms Improve Access to Kidney Transplantation?

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Laura Plantinga, Emory University; Krishnam Raju Penmatsa, Queen’s NRI Hospital; Megan Urbanski, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2022-06-01
• Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2022 International Society of Nephrology. Published by Elsevier Inc.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ekir.2022.040015
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: KIDNEY INTERNATIONAL REPORTS
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 6
• Start Page: 1153
• End Page: 1156
• Grant/Funding Information: MU is supported by a grant (TL1TR002382) from the Georgia Clinical & Translational Science Alliance (supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under award number UL1TR002378).
• Keywords: Science & Technology; Urology & Nephrology; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; DISPARITIES
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery

Abstract

Lack of access to kidney transplantation—the preferred treatment for most patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), in terms of costs, health-related quality of life, and clinical outcomes—remains an issue worldwide. In the United States, fewer than one-third of patients with prevalent ESKD had a functioning graft in 2019 and only 3% of patients with ESKD had a pre-emptive kidney transplant.1 Disparities in kidney transplant access by age and race/ethnicity are also prominent in the United States: for example, 14%, 11%, and 7% of White, Black, and Native American patients with ESKD being waitlisted or transplanted within 1 year of diagnosis, and adults aged 18 to 44 years are twice as likely to be waitlisted or transplanted within a year as those aged 65 to 74 years (14% vs. 7%).1 Importantly, most of the disparities in access may occur at earlier, prewaitlisting steps in the transplantation process (e.g., transplant evaluation).