It’s been a long road for 22-year-old Sarah-Anne Heroux-Blanchard.
When she was just 9 years old, doctors discovered she has a rare disease that affects her kidney function, and so at the age of 14, she underwent a transplant.
Heroux-Blanchard’s transplant was successful, but it didn’t completely cure her.
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Her disease is still attacking her kidneys, so she’s back in hospital for treatment.
Pediatric Nephrologist Dr. Bethany Foster, said transplants may not work so well in other young women.
Foster was recently involved in a study that compared kidney transplant survival rates in males and females.
The study, conducted by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM), showed that females between the ages of 15 and 24 have a 30 to 40 per cent higher risk of kidney graft failure than males in the same age group.
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The same study however, also revealed that women over the age of 45 had a slightly better graft survival than males, of the same age.
“Once we observed all of these things, we had to try and figure out what could possibly explain this,” said Foster. “And one of the most obvious things that may explain this is hormonal differences.”
According to Foster, who is also a part of The Canadian National Transplant Research Program, the results of the study suggest that health professionals may need to start thinking about treating girls and boys and men and women differently.
“Many drugs are developed and tested on men only, or have been in the past,” Foster said. “And the assumption is that they’re going to work the same in women, as they do in men, and that is not the case.”