Gender plays key role in kidney transplant success

London, July 10 : A new study from University of Basel and University of Heidelberg has revealed that gender plays a key role in the success of kidney transplants.

Women are at an increased risk of rejecting a male donor kidney. Moreover, female donor kidneys do not function as well in men as they are smaller in size.

While analysing the data from nearly 200,000 kidney transplant patients, the team found that female donor kidneys were less successful due to small size and it has fewer nephrons, the active components of the kidneys that that filter urine.

Women, who received male kidney, were at 11 pct-increased risk of rejecting the transplants in first year after the operation.

Even two to ten years, later women were still at 10 percent greater risk of rejecting the transplants, than other groups.

"The higher rate of rejection is most likely caused by the gender-specific Y chromosome in men," The Lancet quoted Professor Dr. Gerhard Opelz, Medical Director of the Department of Transplantation Immunology at the Institute of Immunology of Heidelberg University Hospital.

Researchers have suggested that in the future, gender should be one of the key factors to be considered while organ transplantation.

The study is published in the medical journal 'The Lancet'.

ANI