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Anchor lead: Would you accept a less than perfect kidney transplant? Elizabeth Tracey reports

When people are on kidney transplant lists, life is often a struggle. Frequent dialysis can define their lives, and each day brings worsening kidney disease. Now a new study shows that transplant centers often don’t tell patients that an offer of a kidney has been made to them if they think it’s not of sufficient quality, yet patients say they are willing to accept such an organ. Chirag Parikh, director of nephrology at Johns Hopkins, says patients should bring up this issue.

Parikh: Discussing this with the patients and patients expressing this preference that if it is a lower quality kidney and I’m lower on the list then that allows me to get a transplant faster I would be ready to take it, that would change the whole dynamic. The decision is being made on behalf of the patient and that patient is not fully in the loop. Not that anybody is trying to not give it to them but some patients would have gladly accepted those kidneys.  :28

Parikh says full disclosure on all sides would help. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.