Duke Faculty Member Wins First Place in Organ Transplantation Publishing Competition

The online medical journal Cureus announced this week that lead author Dr. Aparna Rege, Clinical Associate, Division of Abdominal Transplant Surgery, won a recent publishing competition with a research piece on kidney transplantation. Dr. Rege’s article explores the use of expanded criteria donors and overall donor quality during the last decade in the United States.

What makes an expanded criteria donor, or ECD? Several factors exist, including weight, age, and medical conditions, such as diabetes. The risk of graft failure can be higher using organs from ECDs. Using the Kidney Donor Profile Index, a tool used to examine organ quality, the Duke research team studied the use of ECDs over the last ten years. Their findings indicate that although use of marginal ECDs has recently decreased, most likely due to risk-adverse transplant center behavior, ECD kidneys can be a life-saving resource for the right recipient, and in some cases have a lower risk of graft failure than kidneys from standard criteria donors.

Dr. Rege’s winning piece is titled “Trends in Usage and Outcomes for Expanded Criteria Donor Kidney Transplantation in the United States Characterized by Kidney Donor Profile Index,” and was co-written by Dr. William Irish, Assistant Consulting Professor, Abdominal Transplant Surgery, Dr. Anthony Castleberry, Surgery Resident, Dr. Deepak Vikraman, Assistant Professor, Abdominal Transplant Surgery, Dr. Scott Sanoff, Assistant Professor, Medicine-Nephrology, Dr. Kadiyala Ravindra, Associate Professor, Abdominal Transplant Surgery, Dr. Bradley Collins, Associate Professor, Abdominal Transplant Surgery, and Dr. Debra Sudan, Professor and Chief, Abdominal Transplant Surgery.

Cureus began the competition this year as a means of improving organ donation and transplantation rates. The contest was divided into two categories, with entrants invited to study differing donation rates demographically in the United States, or the trends in organ utilization in recent years.  

The Duke research team was awarded a $5,000 first place prize for their entry.