Summary
Ethical Considerations
The authors of the research managed to conduct a cohort study with more than 14 years of follow-up, examining various data from more than 50 kidney transplantation recipients and their donors. The research was approved by the Central Denmark Region Committees on Health Research Ethics and the Danish Data Protection Agency. As such, the study is considered to follow ethical guidelines and regulations. In addition, the researchers address a cause for the potential negative selection of donors upon the publication of the study. They render the issue improbable due to the possible implementation of fibrosis-inhibiting drugs and renal protective treatments for risk groups of kidney graft recipients. However, the success of the study significantly benefits from the country in which it was conducted. The Danish healthcare system contains detailed biological and clinical information available on patients (Arendt et al., 2020). In contrast, the clinical information system of American healthcare can be considered insufficient (Amelung, 2019). Thus, the research is beneficial only to such countries, like Denmark, with sufficient clinical and biological data systems. In conclusion, the research shows that the baseline biopsies from human kidney grafts contain useful information on long-term graft survival. With the possibility of the introduction of further preventive therapies and the implementation of renal protective treatments, the process of vascular damage can be delayed. However, the research can prove to be of no use to the countries with insufficient clinical information on patients. The presence of a nationwide system of collected data can significantly benefit the assessment of donors and graft survival.
References
Amelung, V. E. (2019). Healthcare management. Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Arendt, J., Hansen, A. T., Ladefoged, S. A., Sørensen, H. T., Pedersen, L., & Adelborg, K. (2020). Existing data sources in clinical epidemiology: Laboratory information system databases in Denmark. Clinical Epidemiology, 12, 469–475. Web.
Ellingsen, A. R., Jørgensen, K. A., Østerby, R., Petersen, S. E., Juul, S., Marcussen, N., & Nyengaard, J. R. (2021). Human kidney graft survival correlates with structural parameters in baseline biopsies: a quantitative observational cohort study with more than 14 years’ follow-up. Virchows Archiv: An International Journal of Pathology, 478(4), 659–668. Web.