Abstract 14418: Association Between 2018 Unos Heart Transplant Policy Changes and Likelihood of Transplant for Patients in Rural versus Urban Settings

Introduction: United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) recently extended the radius for which a heart transplant candidate can be matched with a donor in order to improve transplantation access for the most critically-ill patients. However, this means that smaller transplant centers serving rural populations may not retain the hearts that were donated within their geographic area. It is unknown whether the UNOS policy change of 2018 was associated with differences in likelihood of heart transplantation or death on the waiting list for patients from rural versus urban (metropolitan or micropolitan) settings. Methods: Using the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, we analyzed U.S. adult patients who were listed for heart transplant from January 2017 through January 2020. Patients were stratified by home zipcodes to either metropolitan, micropolitan, or rural settings. Fine and Gray proportional hazard regression models were used to estimate the sub-distribution hazard ratio (SHR) of heart transplantation with death or removal from transplant list as a competing event according to geographic residence with date of UNOS policy change October 18 2018 as a time-varying covariate. Interaction (p-int) tests were performed between geographic setting and time of policy change. Results: Among 8756 patients, 82% were from metropolitan, 9% micropolitan, and 9% rural settings. The 2018 UNOS policy change was associated with increased receipt of heart transplantation within each geographic setting [metropolitan SHR 1.41 (95%CI: 1.33-1.50); micropolitan SHR 1.30 (95%CI: 1.08-1.56); rural SHR 1.33 (95%CI: 1.10-1.62); p-int=0.60]. Policy changes were not significantly associated with death on the transplant list for any geographic setting [metropolitan SHR 0.97 (95%CI: 0.82-1.14); micropolitan SHR 1.25 (95%CI: 0.80-1.96); rural SHR 0.89 (95%CI: 0.55-1.46); p-int=0.52]. Conclusions: Independent of geographic location, the 2018 UNOS policy change for heart transplantation was associated with increased heart transplantation and no significant difference in hazard of death. Additional follow-up is needed to determine whether improvements are sustained.