Disparities in donor acceptance rates point to need for more equitable heart transplant care Deborah Balthazar By Deborah Balthazar March 25, 2024

https://www.statnews.com/2024/03/25/heart-transplant-patient-acceptance-rates-jama/?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299795638&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--dWdXkGlLZ3RGMA1YJ92VX02vvlxq1aXgZSISMbqu6es6_EWa2pihBqJNKbbB3gywOtefVRr7y36D6yzec2pvTDlf2nA&utm_content=299795638&utm_source=hs_email Acceptance rates by transplant teams for donated hearts varied by race and gender, study finds Researcher Khadijah Breathett calls the JAMA findings “really bizarre.” While access to donor hearts has improved in recent years, disparities persist in who gets a heart transplant. Breathett, an advanced heart failure transplant cardiologist at Indiana University Health, led a team that discovered both white and Black women were more likely to have an offered heart accepted by their transplant team, but Black men had the longest wait as transplant centers repeatedly rejected offers. The number of matched offers until an accepted offer was much lower for women, especially white women, and greatest for Black men. For every offer made, the odds were significantly lower for Black individuals than white individuals that one would be accepted. Breathett suspects bias, but in a companion editorial, Paul Heidenreich writes, “I don’t think we’ve proven that African Americans are getting worse care … But we do see concerning disparities.” STAT’s Deborah Balthazar has more. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2816674?utm_campaign=morning_rounds&utm_medium=email&_hsmi=299795638&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--VNGnqKu6MxrjEPftMWDN20-MmbiUf8kcoJQI9u7FGcQmge-22UselbgV0UZ_XT3lG724m8pNbf06RXEkTJmYj6UNSlg&utm_content=299795638&utm_source=hs_email