Study backs kidney transplant method for hardest-to-match

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 1 in 3 patients who needs a kidney transplant is especially hard to match, and new research suggests a painstaking treatment to help those patients tolerate an incompatible organ is worth considering.

More hospitals have begun offering so-called desensitization therapy to help high-risk patients who have a willing but non-matching living donor receive an organ their bodies otherwise would reject.

[...] an analysis from nearly two dozen transplant centers found patients who took that chance had better long-term survival than those who stayed on the waiting list, whether or not they eventually found a match from a deceased donor.

Patients take potent immune-targeting medications and have their blood filtered to remove specific antibodies that would target their living donor's kidney.