Black men are less likely to receive a heart transplant than white men and women

Ernie Mandel HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, March 27, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Black men are less likely to be transplanted with a functioning donor heart in the United States than white transplant candidates of either gender, a new study shows. It was shown in

“This news is concerning because black patients are two to three times more likely to develop the disease.” heart failure “More white patients than white patients have the highest risk of death from heart failure compared to other races and ethnicities,” the study authors said. Dr. Khadijah Brissett. She is an associate professor at Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

Brisette’s team looked at United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) data from the end of 2018 to March 2023.

Of the approximately 15,000 Americans waiting for a donor heart, 69% were white and 31% were black. Approximately 74% were male.

Black candidates for heart transplants (regardless of gender) are 24% less likely to be accepted as a healthy donor heart compared to white candidates of either gender, the study found. This also applies to multiple “offers” for donor hearts.

Women are more likely to be accepted as heart donors than men, a study has found.

According to the study, white women had the highest chance of receiving a healthy heart, followed by black women, then white men, and finally black men.

“Black patients are less likely to be referred for a heart transplant, to be approved for a transplant, and to receive a transplant after enrollment,” Professor Brisette said in a university news release. “The intersection of race and gender often exacerbates access for Black women.”

Brisette is also a cardiologist at Indiana University Health. She explained that organ transplants currently rely on computer algorithms that match candidates and donors based on a variety of factors, including blood type, disease severity, transplant urgency, and location.

Transplant team members then review the data and decide whether to accept a heart from a particular patient in need.

“We are working to understand how the process of receiving a transplant after being listed differs by race and gender, and combinations of the two, in order to take steps to make that process more fair. “I wanted to,” Brisette explained.

She emphasized that deciding who should donate a heart is not easy.

The transplant team considers whether the heart is a good fit for the patient based on factors such as body size, donor health, donor mortality, and distance traveled between the donor’s hospital and the future recipient’s hospital. There is a need.

“It’s a lot of work to make sure that decision is the right one,” Brissett said. “You don’t want to receive a donation that doesn’t benefit the patient. In our study, we took the step of only including ‘good hearts,’ that is, hearts that were largely ultimately accepted by some team.” . Our findings are alarming. Overall, we found that the decision to accept ‘goodwill’ required more matching before acceptance for black patients than for white patients and for men than for women. ”

So why are black men who need a new heart so often the last to receive one?

“While we don’t believe it was intentional, this study may show how bias can lead to unfair life-or-death decision-making based on race or gender,” Brisette said. .

She theorized that structural racism within society as a whole may be a contributing factor.

“Structural racism contributes to increasing social determinants of health and decreasing access to quality and timely care,” Brisette explained. She said there is a growing body of data showing that “structural racism contributes to biological changes” that can hasten and worsen disease in Black Americans.

All of this can be addressed by transplant centers that are aware of the inequities surrounding donor organs.

“We should provide data to centers and encourage them to do the right thing. It’s important that centers also complete evidence-based bias training and anti-racism training,” Brisette said. .

Click here to learn more about how organ transplants work. UNOS.

Source: Indiana University, News Release, March 25, 2024

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