Transplant Statistics: Annual Report

Technical Notes and Analytic Methods
Deaths and Death Rates for Transplant Recipients

The death rate tables show the number of patients who received a transplant during the year or who had a functioning graft at the beginning of the year and the annual death rates per 1,000 patient years at risk. The period at risk begins on the later of January 1 or the transplant date and ends on the earlier of December 31, the date of death, or the last date of follow-up. Deaths and death rates for each organ are presented in Table 5 of each of the organ-specific sections.

• Index 6.5   Kidney Transplants
• Index 7.5  Pancreas Transplants
• Index 8.5   Kidney-Pancreas Transplants
• Index 9.5   Liver Transplants
• Index 10.5  Intestine Transplants
• Index 11.5  Heart Transplants
• Index 12.5  Lung Transplants
• Index 13.5  Heart-Lung Transplants

The term patient-years describes the actual amount of time for which each patient has reported data after a transplant. For example, Patient A has reported data for six months after her transplant, while Patient B only has reported data for three months, and Patient C has reported data indicating that he lived through the entire year. Patient A contributes 0.5 patient-years to the calculation, Patient B contributes 0.25 years, and Patient C contributes one patient-year to the patient-years calculation.

The annual death rate per 1,000 patient years at risk, therefore, is the number of deaths for every 1,000 patient-years of follow-up after transplant. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of patients who died in a given year by the sum of the years (including partial years) for which patients have reported data and then multiplying by 1,000. The number 1,000 was chosen, rather than the more familiar 100, because death rates in some categories may be so low that they produce a small percentage.

These files contain data on all patients who have received a transplant. The OPTN members have direct responsibility for submitting, maintaining, and monitoring all data from the time their patients are transplanted until death or graft failure. Members are required to submit forms within 30 days of the form generation date or within 14 days if the recipient has died or experienced graft failure (OPTN policies 7.3.1 and 7.3.3).

The OPTN receives notification of a death after transplant when a follow-up form is submitted with a current status indicating death. Patients who are lost to follow-up (either due to loss of contact or due to graft failure for kidney patients) are included in the time at risk until the point they become lost to follow-up. In categories that had zero to nine patients in the cohort, death rates were not calculated and the symbol "*" appears.