The impact of simultaneous batch turn downs and targeted kidney utilization decisions on patient survival

Diwakar Gupta, Jingyao Huang and Paola Martin

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: In the US, Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) procure deceased-donor kidneys, whereas Transplant Programs (TxPs) make utilization decisions for candidates listed at their centers. For each donor, candidates are ranked in a strict priority sequence determined by the national allocation rules. Higher-ranked candidates have the right of first refusal over lower-ranked candidates. TxPs are expected to utilize kidneys based on the merits of performing a transplant for each candidate independently of other candidates. However, they frequently utilize kidneys for lower-ranked candidates. This phenomenon is called list diving. The prevalence of list diving has been documented in the literature but its impact on post-transplant outcomes has not been studied. Moreover, all of the reasons why TxPs exercise list diving are not observed in archival data. Therefore, we examine whether utilization decisions that occur either before or concurrently with multiple declines (referred to as batch turn downs) of higher-ranked candidates result in higher recipient and graft survival after accounting for treatment endogeneity. The out-of-sequence transplants identified via the time-based criterion are referred to as targeted placements (TPs). Such transplants signal TxPs’ exercise of clinical judgment. We find that TPs reduce the waiting time for recipients (average time to transplant: 2.20 years for TP recipients vs. 2.64 years for non-targeted recipients, p–value

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0333222 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 33222&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0333222

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0333222

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().