Multi-state models preferable to measure graft risk among kidney transplant recipients

Compared with the Kaplan-Meier estimator, researchers found multi-state models provided a more accurate and comprehensive assessment of the life course and graft risk of older kidney transplant recipients.

“As a result of excellent graft survival in older patients and, inevitably, relatively high mortality, most older kidney recipients can expect to die with a functioning graft. Also noteworthy is the fact that there is an increased rate of early graft failure in elderly patients, at least in part due to higher use of expanded criteria kidneys in this age group,” Thomas Vanhove, MD, PhD, from Massachusetts General Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues wrote. Read more in Healio.