Algorithm Offers a Novel Approach to Kidney Transplants

June 10, 2005

A new mathematical algorithm has been developed by a team of researchers that optimizes the selection process for patients awaiting kidney transplants in the US.

Researchers have developed an interactive web site, www.OptimizedMatch.com, that provides interactive demonstrations and resources on the algorithm and its use in transplantation. More than 60,000 patients are waiting for kidney transplants and are listed on the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) recipient registry. KPD provides organs to patients who have a willing, designated donor who is not compatible. A kidney from such a donor is matched to, and transplanted into, the recipient of a second incompatible donor-patient pair and vice versa. The transplants are performed simultaneously.

Dorry Segev of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, his wife MIT graduate student Sommer Gentry and colleagues have developed the novel kidney donor matching algorithm using optimization, a mathematical technology used in various applications. Optimization is the branch of mathematics that calculates which decisions will give the most benefit from a limited resource. The technology is used in airline scheduling, stock portfolio management, mapping driving directions and other areas.

The researchers found that a national optimized matching algorithm would result in more transplants (47.7 percent compared to 42.0 percent), better matches and more grafts surviving at five years when compared with an extension of the currently used first-accept scheme to a national level. Segev also pointed out that even if just about seven percent of patients awaiting kidney transplantation participated in an optimized national KPD program, the health care system could save as much as $750 million.

Source: EDITTECH INTERNATIONAL

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This article posted August 1, 2005.