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I watched (IMHO canibalistic) movie "Seven Pounds" where protagonist donated many of his organs to other people and I noticed, that most recipients were black also as protagonist was.

Is race really taken into account when organ transplanting?

UPDATE

The question is not just about if interracial transplantation really good or bad. I can imagine, that transplantation is done same-race just in case, in favor of "do not harm" principle.

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    $\begingroup$ Interesting that pillay et al. (1990) contradict organedono.gov. Organdonor.gov don't have any reference but the article is quite old (1990) while oraganedonor.gov is probably frequently updated. We'll need some more recent research in order to answer this question. $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    Sep 25, 2015 at 0:25

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No, race is not a factor taken into account. However, due to higher genetic similarities between people of the same race, it is usually easier to find a match within a race.

Source 1

Source 2

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    $\begingroup$ The two statements seem somewhat contradictory. Can you add some explanation? $\endgroup$
    – WYSIWYG
    Sep 24, 2015 at 17:18
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    $\begingroup$ Race is not taken into account in the sense that they do not use it as a factor in finding a match. E.g., if you are black and need an organ, they do not look only to black donors. However, it is more likely that someone from your own race is a match simply because of genetic similarity. Therefore, it is going to be more common to see people have a donor of the same race only because the probability of a match being the same race of a recipient is higher than the probability of a match being a different race. $\endgroup$
    – TreeHouse196
    Sep 24, 2015 at 22:38
  • $\begingroup$ It makes sense. You might want to rephrase the question just to avoid the confusion. I also first thought that you were contradicting yourself. $\endgroup$
    – Remi.b
    Sep 25, 2015 at 0:27
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    $\begingroup$ Also keep in mind the most likely match is direct family which of course will tend to be the same race. $\endgroup$
    – John
    Nov 12, 2017 at 15:42
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Here is a really interesting article discussing this topic and finding no statistically significant difference in survival rates between donations across race and those within a race.

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Everyone is correct, it depends on which organs are being offered.With kidneys and pancreas the HLA (the tissue matching) is used and important for graft survival. Since our HLA will more likely match another of a similar race then you could say race may matter with those organs. There are some interesting studies that are emphasizing that race does play a factor in the success of the kidney transplant, as well as the HLA. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2826243/#__ffn_sectitle In liver transplant, race still does not matter for the success of the organ transplant.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2954674/

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  • $\begingroup$ Welcome. Can you add sources or references to your answer? Without those, people can't background read on your post. $\endgroup$
    – AliceD ♦
    Nov 10, 2017 at 21:49

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