Before this talk, I knew little information about kidney disease and transplantation. I was surprised that American Indians\/Alaska Natives are 9.5 times greater to get kidney disease than Caucasians. It was also surprising to find out that 38% of transplant candidates meet the criteria for obesity and that obesity can prevent someone from getting a kidney transplant. I liked how both studies dealt with attitudes toward BMI and and eligibility for transplantation.\u00a0The premise of study 1 was very interesting to me and it was shocking that 80% of providers thought that it was okay to transplant someone with a BMI between 30 and 35. In my personal opinion, I think that it is okay to transplant someone with a BMI between 30 and 35 as long as they are educated on the risks and possible outcomes of the transplant. In study 2, the purpose was to explore the role of BMI in determining patient eligibility for kidney transplantation. 5 programs identified a maximum BMI as a absolute contraindication and 9 programs identified it as a relative contraindication. Overall, the main limitation from these 2 studies is that it is mainly an opinion based study, the questions asked to providers could be based on their own personal opinion rather than policy. What fascinated me the most was that weight loss prior to transplant has not been shown to improve outcomes, which is ironic because providers urge people to lose weight to become eligible for a transplant, but the outcome is not improved. I also feel as though providers should run more tests to see if an individual is eligible for a transplant rather than just judging off of their BMI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before this talk, I knew little information about kidney disease and transplantation. I was surprised that American Indians\/Alaska Natives are 9.5 times greater to get kidney disease than Caucasians. It was also surprising to find out that 38% of transplant … Continue reading