Are Potential Organ Recipients With Blood Group O Being Treated Fairly?
By Lynn Haley Special to DG News VANCOUVER, BC — April 30, 2001 — Patient with blood group O are being treated unfairly when it comes to wait times for cardiac transplantation, according to researchers from Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. Patients with this blood group are affected by policies of organ allocation where ABO compatible, non-identical transplantations are performed. The study was presented at the 21s Annual Meeting of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation held here April 25th-28th. While organs from blood group O donors can be used to transplant all recipients, when an O organ is used in a patient with another blood group, this may adversely affect group O patients who are on waiting lists for transplants. In order to determine how blood group influences the chance to receive the transplant, wait list mortality, waiting time to transplant surgery, and early mortality following transplant, researchers reviewed results of trans
