Undocumented immigrants with end-stage renal disease who underwent kidney transplantation had outcomes that were as good as, if not better than, those in the general population of transplant patients at one US center.
"The highly encouraging outcomes — using standard selection and post-transplant care protocols — in this challenged recipient population strongly suggest that undocumented immigrant patients with end-stage kidney disease should not be precluded from consideration for kidney transplant based on immigration status alone," write Marie Siobhan Luce, MD, and colleagues in a research letter published online in JAMA Surgery.
"I was pleasantly surprised to find that our undocumented transplant recipients had better graft survival than expected, and higher graft survival rates when compared to our institution's overall cohort," Luce of the Department of Surgery, UC Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, California, told Medscape Medical News.
"Given the retrospective nature of our study, it's difficult to know why this is, however, I speculate that a strong family support system may play a part," she ventured.
An Alternative to Emergency-Only Dialysis?
As a result of their lack of citizenship, many undocumented immigrants with end-stage kidney disease are unable to receive kidney transplants — due to limited or nonexistent financial coverage — and they may instead be offered dialysis on an emergency-only basis, which can ultimately increase the costs to society.
