Making matters worse, kidneys from Black donors in the U.S. are more likely to be thrown away as a result of a flawed system that erroneously considers all Black donor kidneys as more likely to stop working after a transplant than kidneys from donors of other races. Research on previous transplants shows that some kidneys donated by Black people are more likely to stop working sooner after transplantation than kidneys donated by people from other races. This could explain the data on Black donor kidney failure rate. And since Black kidney recipients are more likely to receive kidneys from Black donors, this approach could perpetuate transplant disparities. One way researchers are working to identify higher risk kidneys is using the APOLLO study, which assesses the impact of key variants on donated kidneys.

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Organizations: CNN, Black, American, Research, Americans Locations: U.S, Africa, West, Saharan Africa