Time given back

To find out whether the kidneys are working well, doctors use a formula, the estimated glomerular filtration rate. For years, in the United States, this formula included a race variable. For Black people, it overestimated the health of their kidneys. The result: their disease was recognized later, and they started accumulating time on the transplant waiting list later.

On September 23, 2021, the National Kidney Foundation and the American Society of Nephrology recommended a new formula, without a race variable. Then the U.S. transplant network went further: starting January 5, 2023, transplant programs had to identify disadvantaged Black patients and give them back the waiting time they had lost.

A year later, 14,701 files had been corrected, with a median of 1.7 years of waiting time restored. Among these people, 2,709 received a kidney from a deceased donor and 158 from a living donor. Here, repair is very concrete: acknowledging the error, then giving everyone back their rightful place in line.