Vincent Casingal, M.D., is a transplant surgeon, chief of abdominal transplantation, and surgical director of the kidney transplant program at Atrium Health in Charlotte, N.C., and also the immediate past chair of the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network Kidney Transplantation Committee. He recently authored an op-ed for STAT outlining the success of the new kidney allocation policy, which took effect in March of 2021.
Casingal used OPTN data to show that the policy is working as intended, increasing transplant equity and expanding access to deceased donor organs. Casingal points to numbers which show that following implementation, kidney transplants have gone up by 22 percent nationally, with increases across all age groups and blood types. There were also increases among Black and Hispanic patients and those who had been on dialysis longer.
“Committees convened by UNOS constantly evaluate and improve equity across the system. As a member of UNOS’s kidney committee since 2014, and its chair from 2019 to 2021, I know firsthand that these committees have been working collaboratively and methodically to build one policy on top of the next in the drive toward optimal equity.”
Read Casingal’s Jan. 28th op-ed.
