A lack of living donor renal transplantation for Asian children represents an opportunity to improve pediatric healthcare.
BACKGROUND
The relationship between pediatric primary care practitioners and families provides an early opportunity to address ethnic/racial pediatric subspecialty health care disparities. Living donor pediatric renal transplantation is safe and more effective than deceased donor renal transplantation. The purpose of this study is to identify groups of children who may be less likely to receive living donor renal transplantation, as the first step in assisting pediatric clinicians to increase living donor renal transplantation.


METHODS
We employed a retrospective cohort design. We analyzed data from the medical records of 80 children receiving renal transplantation over 20 years in a large pediatric medical center.


RESULTS
The proportions of children receiving a living donor renal allograft differed by ethnicity/race (P = .04). Specifically, children of Asian ethnicity/ race were significantly less likely than children of White ethnicity/race to receive a living donor renal allograft (P = .01). There were no significant differences in age at transplantation or wait time for deceased donor transplantation.


CONCLUSIONS
We discuss the possible reasons for the discrepancy and potential directions for family-centered pediatric practice, policy, and research to address this potential pediatric healthcare disparity.
Department of Pediatrics, Division of General Pediatrics, University of California Davis, 2516 Stockton Boulevard, Suite 341, Sacramento, California 95817, USA. erik.fernandez@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Erik
E
Fernandez y Garcia
Keith K
KK
Lau
D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007676:Kidney Failure, Chronic / Q000208:ethnology / Q000601:surgery; D016030:Kidney Transplantation / Q000208:ethnology*; D019520:Living Donors / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000600:supply & distribution*; D008297:Male; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D014850:Waiting Lists; D055815:Young Adult