Saudi Journal of Kidney Diseases and Transplantation (Jan 2008)
Gender Disparity in Kidney Transplantation
Abstract
Gender discrimination in benefiting from medical treatment is a worldwide pro-blem. Kidney transplantation, as the ideal treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), is not an exception. Considering the unique kidney donation patterns and different family styles in the Middle East, studying this problem in Iran seemed justifiable and necessary. In addition to comparing the numbers of female and male recipients, which has been done in other similar studies, considering the critical effect of waiting time on the outcome, we assessed and compared the waiting times also. The data of age, gender, nationality, donor type and waiting time before transplantation of 1426 (61.85% male, 38.14% female) recipients who underwent transplantation in Imam Reza Hospital in the northeast of Iran from 1990 to 2003, was analyzed. Recipients were categorised into three groups based on donation patterns: those receiving kidney from live unrelated, live related and cadaver donors. The number of patients in each group was 1057 (61.96% male, 38.03% female), 232 (67.24% male, 32.75% female) and 137 (51.82% male, 48.17% female) respectively. The mean overall waiting time was 708 days. Comparing waiting time of male and female recipients in each of these groups did not show significant difference. In all categories of donors, females were less likely than males to be recipients. Furthermore, waiting time for females was longer than males when receiving kidney from sisters and children. For spousal donations, males were recipients more frequently than females although female recipients in this group waited less than their male counterparts to receive the kidney. Generally, our results are in accordance with results of similar researches. In all three mentioned groups, males com-prised the majority while the waiting time does not show significant difference between genders. We suggest some reasons for this phenomenon, of which the two main ones are: fewer females are suffering from ESRD and/or females have less chance to find a potential donor in the family, which can be attributed to their lower socio-economic status.
