Original Articles
A Description of the Costs of Living and Standard Criteria Deceased Donor Kidney Transplantation

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-6143.2010.03425.xGet rights and content
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Kidney transplantation improves quality of life and survival and is associated with lower health care costs compared with dialysis. We described and compared the costs of living and standard criteria for deceased donor kidney transplantation. Patients included adult recipients of a first kidney-only transplant between April 1, 1998, and March 31, 2006, as well as their donor information. All costs (outpatient care, diagnostic imaging, inpatient care, physician claims, laboratory tests and transplant medications) for 2 years after transplant for recipients and transplant-related costs prior to transplant (donor workup and management) were included. Complete cost information was available for 357 recipients. The mean total 2-year cost of transplantation, including donor costs, for recipients of living and deceased donors was $118 347 (95% confidence interval [CI], 110 395–126 299) and $121 121 (95% CI 114 287–127 956), respectively (p = 0.7). The mean cost for a living donor was $18 129 (95% CI 16 845–19 414) and for a deceased donor was $36 989 (95% CI 34 421–39 558). Living donor kidney transplantation has similar costs at 2 years compared with deceased donor transplantation. These results can be used by health care decision makers to inform strategies to increase donation.

Key words:

Cost analysis
deceased donation
kidney transplantation
living donation

Abbreviations:

ESRD
end-stage renal disease
ALTRA
Southern Alberta Transplant Program database
AHW
Alberta Health & Wellness
CHR
Calgary Health Region
CI
confidence interval
SD
standard deviation
IQR
inter-quartile range
CMV
cytomegalovirus
ARE
acute rejection episode
ICU
intensive care unit
WLM
workload measurement unit
CMG
case-mix grouper

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