Title: Racial bias is baked into algorithms doctors use to guide treatment
Headings: Racial bias is baked into algorithms doctors use to guide treatment
Racial bias is baked into algorithms doctors use to guide treatment
Heart failure
Kidney donation
Breast cancer
Birth

Content: The algorithm ranks kidneys from Black donors as higher risk than those from people of other races, though "the developers of the KDRI do not provide possible explanations for this difference," the authors wrote. Studies now suggest that a specific genetic trait, known as the APOL1 genotype, may explain differences in kidney quality better than race, the authors wrote. Approximately 13% of Black people carry two copies of an APOL1 gene variant associated with increased risk of chronic kidney disease, according to a 2019 report in the journal Circulation. But again, the genotype, not the person's race, best explains this increased risk. By screening for race rather than APOL1 genotype, the KDRI may reduce the number of available kidneys from Black donors, which often go to Black patients, the authors noted. Breast cancer
An online risk assessment tool from the National Cancer Institute may underestimate the risk that African American, Latino and Asian American women develop breast cancer, compared with white women who report the same risk factors. These risk factors include a woman's age, date of first period, close relatives with breast cancer and number of benign biopsies; the risk assessment tool is not used to evaluate women with a breast-cancer-producing mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Yet Black women develop breast cancer at about the same rate as white women. An inappropriately low score may deter women from seeking formal screening for the disease, which may increase the odds that they are diagnosed later in the course of illness, when prognosis is poorer, the authors wrote.