A new AI tool created by kidney specialists from the UK and the US is making it easier to predict the success of kidney transplants. This tool could help improve the chances of better results for people in the UK who need kidney transplants. Right now, around 5,000 people in the UK are waiting for a kidney, and it can take two to three years to get one from a deceased donor.
The tool is called the “UK Deceased Donor Kidney Transplant Outcome Prediction” (UK-DTOP). It uses advanced AI and has been trained with data from almost 30,000 kidney transplants over 15 years. Dr. Hatem Ali, a kidney expert, led a new study on this tool, which shows that it could change how kidney transplants are done. He believes it can help doctors choose the right donor for each patient, improving the chances of a successful transplant.
The tool’s predictive accuracy is much higher than current methods like the Kidney Donor Risk Index (KDRI), which often fall short in forecasting patient outcomes. Using data from nearly 30,000 transplant cases, UK-DTOP achieved a predictive score of 0.74, compared to the KDRI’s 0.57.
Besides predicting outcomes, the AI tool can also group patients based on their risk, which helps doctors make more personalized decisions. Although the tool is a major step forward, it still has some limitations. For example, missing data about donors and certain factors affecting long-term success could impact its accuracy.
Dr. Miklos Molnar, one of the study’s co-authors, believes that using data-driven tools like this could revolutionize how organs are matched to patients, improve transplant success rates, and ultimately save lives.
Source: medicalxpress
