Trend Shows More Older Adults Receiving Organ Transplants.

The New York Times  (1/9, Span) "New Old Age" blog reports, "A graying population and revised policies determining who gets priority for donated organs, have led to a rising proportion of older adults receiving transplants." For example, data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients show that the number of kidney transplants performed annually on adults over 65 tripled between 1998 and 2012. The rise in elderly lung transplant candidates "is particularly dramatic because, since 2005, a 'lung allocation score' puts those at the highest mortality risk, rather than those who've waited longest, at the top of the list. In 2001, about 3 percent of those on the wait list and of those transplanted were over 65; last year, older patients represented almost 18 percent of wait-listed candidates and more than a quarter of transplant recipients."