ATC Abstracts

American Transplant Congress abstracts

  • Home
  • Meetings Archive
    • 2022 American Transplant Congress
    • 2021 American Transplant Congress
    • 2020 American Transplant Congress
    • 2019 American Transplant Congress
    • 2018 American Transplant Congress
    • 2017 American Transplant Congress
    • 2016 American Transplant Congress
    • 2015 American Transplant Congress
    • 2013 American Transplant Congress
  • Keyword Index
  • Resources
    • 2021 Resources
    • 2016 Resources
      • 2016 Welcome Letter
      • ATC 2016 Program Planning Committees
      • ASTS Council 2015-2016
      • AST Board of Directors 2015-2016
    • 2015 Resources
      • 2015 Welcome Letter
      • ATC 2015 Program Planning Committees
      • ASTS Council 2014-2015
      • AST Board of Directors 2014-2015
      • 2015 Conference Schedule
  • Search

Implementation of Novel Machine-Learning Techniques to Tailor Donornet® Organ Offers to Center and Surgeon Preference

A. C. Perez-Ortiz, N. Elias

Transplant Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA

Meeting: 2019 American Transplant Congress

Abstract number: B138

Keywords: Donation, Efficacy, Kidney transplantation

Session Information

Session Name: Poster Session B: Kidney Donor Selection / Management Issues

Session Type: Poster Session

Date: Sunday, June 2, 2019

Session Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm

 Presentation Time: 6:00pm-7:00pm

Location: Hall C & D

*Purpose: Real-time communication regarding organ placement is critical. For this purpose, UNOS launched DonorNet®, a computerized allocation algorithm, to aid and facilitate organ placement. However, by increasing the probability of an organ matching, this led to a remarkable increase in the volume of unwanted offers as a side effect. There is still an area for improvement to DonorNet® with novel computational techniques such as machine-learning to decrease the time spent reviewing organ offers that will not translate to an organ transplant based on the hospitals’ or surgeons’ preference. Hence, we aimed to develop a series of predictive machine-learning (ML) algorithms to aid in the incoming kidney donor offers through DonorNet®, taking special care in not impacting negatively in the organ allocation process.

*Methods: We analyzed ~45,000 historical kidney offers from our institution between 2003-2017 and built a series of ML predictive models to predict whether a given offer was going to be accepted in our center (Comparison A) or whether it was going to occur in a different hospital (Comparison B) (thereby addressing institutional preferences). Also, for Outcome A, we tested the predictiveness of our models to allocate the organ to the first patient on the list or any subsequent case thereafter. All our models were built in R v.3.5.1 using the CARET package.

*Results: Our most successful model, the bagged CART (Tree bagging), is an optimal classifier of incoming kidney organ offers with sensitivities, specificities, and accuracies ≥95% for both comparisons (Table). Other model families such as random forests or extreme gradient boosting yielded 100% in all model parameters for outcome B. A detailed model performance is shown in the Table.

*Conclusions: In a single-center experience, ML techniques could be useful for improving the increased number of unwanted organ offers thereby providing transplant surgeons with a manageable number of offers tailored to their preferences. We propose that a combination of techniques specifically, bagged CART and Extreme Gradient Boosting, could be the most optimal strategy to address the increased untailored kidney organ offers.

Machine-learning models for classifying DonorNet® incoming donor offers.
Prediction/Outcome Accepted for first on the list vs other position on the list [Outcome A] Accepted at our institution vs elsewhere [Outcome B]
Model parameters: Sen/Spe/Acc (%) Sen/Spe/Acc (%)
Bagged CART (Tree bagging) 95.0/97.7/97.0 98.7/99.7/99.4
CART (Classification and Regression Trees) 25.2/95.2/74.6 76.5/100.0/93.5
Decision Trees 97.8/73.6/88.7 100.0/100.0/100.0
Extreme Gradient Boosting 72.9/97.5/85.2 100.0/100.0/100.0
Random Forest 95.1/65.3/82.8 100.0/100.0/100.0

  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Click to print (Opens in new window) Print

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Perez-Ortiz AC, Elias N. Implementation of Novel Machine-Learning Techniques to Tailor Donornet® Organ Offers to Center and Surgeon Preference [abstract]. Am J Transplant. 2019; 19 (suppl 3). https://atcmeetingabstracts.com/abstract/implementation-of-novel-machine-learning-techniques-to-tailor-donornet-organ-offers-to-center-and-surgeon-preference/. Accessed May 18, 2025.

« Back to 2019 American Transplant Congress

Visit Our Partner Sites

American Transplant Congress (ATC)

Visit the official site for the American Transplant Congress »

American Journal of Transplantation

The official publication for the American Society of Transplantation (AST) and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS) »

American Society of Transplantation (AST)

An organization of more than 3000 professionals dedicated to advancing the field of transplantation. »

American Society of Transplant Surgeons (ASTS)

The society represents approximately 1,800 professionals dedicated to excellence in transplantation surgery. »

Copyright © 2013-2025 by American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Cookie Preferences