Dr. Joel Thomas Adler, Editorial Fellow, Transplantation
Center-Related Bias in MELD Scores Within a Liver Transplant UNOS Region: A Call for Standardization
Verna EC, Connelly C, Dove LM, et al.
Transplantation: Publish Ahead of Print DOI: 10.1097/TP.0000000000003031
Liver allocation relies on the MELD-Na score, which was implemented as an objective measure to prioritize patients based upon disease severity. Verna and colleagues tested 30 patients samples at 9 different labs in a single UNOS region and found significant variability in calculated MELD-Na score: mean variability was 3, but this was worse at high MELD-Na scores. This variation in MELD-Na scores within the same allocation region raises a challenging source of bias and disparities in access to liver transplantation.
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