Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Kidney Paired Donation With Compatible Pairs

2008; Elsevier BV; Volume: 8; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1600-6143.2007.02052.x

1600-6143

Alvin E. Roth, Tayfun Sönmez, M. Utku Ünver,

Reproductive Health and Technologies

To the Editor: We read with great interest the article Gentry et al. (1Gentry SE Segev DL Simmerling M Montgomery RA Expanding kidney paired donation through participation by compatible pairs.Am J Transplant. 2007; 7: 2361-2370Crossref PubMed Scopus (125) Google Scholar) which explores the impact of expanding kidney paired donation (KPD) through participation by compatible pairs. In their abstract they argue that this is a new paradigm of KPD and in their conclusion they indicate that the inclusion of recipients with compatible donors will greatly increase the number of incompatible pairs matched through KPD. While we strongly support this conclusion, they neglected to mention that the impact of expanding KPD through participation by compatible pairs had been examined earlier (2Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU Kidney exchange.Q J Econ. 2004; 119: 457-488Crossref Scopus (495) Google Scholar,3Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England.Am Econ Rev. 2005; 95: 376-380Crossref PubMed Scopus (164) Google Scholar). Roth et al. (3Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England.Am Econ Rev. 2005; 95: 376-380Crossref PubMed Scopus (164) Google Scholar) uses a similar technique of optimization due to Edmonds (4Edmonds J Paths, trees, flowers.Can J Math. 1965; 17: 449-467Crossref Google Scholar) as used in Gentry et al. (1Gentry SE Segev DL Simmerling M Montgomery RA Expanding kidney paired donation through participation by compatible pairs.Am J Transplant. 2007; 7: 2361-2370Crossref PubMed Scopus (125) Google Scholar), although the two papers differ in the construction of the simulated donor-recipient pairs in the KPD pool. For simplicity of the simulations, all pairs were assumed to be nonblood-related in Roth et al. (3Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England.Am Econ Rev. 2005; 95: 376-380Crossref PubMed Scopus (164) Google Scholar), while Gentry et al. (1Gentry SE Segev DL Simmerling M Montgomery RA Expanding kidney paired donation through participation by compatible pairs.Am J Transplant. 2007; 7: 2361-2370Crossref PubMed Scopus (125) Google Scholar) include blood-related pairs. Roth et al. (3Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England.Am Econ Rev. 2005; 95: 376-380Crossref PubMed Scopus (164) Google Scholar) also concluded that the largest gains to incompatible pairs in KPD will come from the inclusion of compatible pairs to KPD. Based on results from (2Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU Kidney exchange.Q J Econ. 2004; 119: 457-488Crossref Scopus (495) Google Scholar,3Roth AE Sonmez T Unver MU A kidney exchange clearinghouse in New England.Am Econ Rev. 2005; 95: 376-380Crossref PubMed Scopus (164) Google Scholar), the three authors of this letter collaborated with the first two authors of Gentry et al. (1Gentry SE Segev DL Simmerling M Montgomery RA Expanding kidney paired donation through participation by compatible pairs.Am J Transplant. 2007; 7: 2361-2370Crossref PubMed Scopus (125) Google Scholar) to produce a consensus kidney paired donation matching statement which includes participation of compatible pairs in KPD as a parameter to be considered in designing a national KPD matching program (5Gentry S Rees M Roth A et al.Consensus kidney paired donation matching statement.Proposal for National Kidney Paired Donation (KPD) Program (Kidney Transplantation Committee), Exhibit D. 2006; (Available from: http://www.unos.org/CommitteeReports/board_main_KidneyTransplantationCommittee_12_18_2006_16_49.pdf. Accessed October 19, 2007.): 313-316Google Scholar).