Journal
JOURNAL OF THE OPERATIONAL RESEARCH SOCIETY
Volume 68, Issue 12, Pages 1521-1532Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1057/s41274-016-0174-3
Keywords
kidney exchange; simulation; optimization
Funding
- ERDF European Regional Development Fund through the COMPETE Program
- National Funds through the FCT Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology) [PTDC/IIM-GES/2830/2014]
- Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [PTDC/IIM-GES/2830/2014] Funding Source: FCT
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One of the challenges in a kidney exchange program (KEP) is to choose policies that ensure an effective and fair management of all participating patients. In order to understand the implications of different policies of patient allocation and pool management, decision makers should be supported by a simulation tool capable of tackling realistic exchange pools and modeling their dynamic behavior. In this paper, we propose a KEP simulator that takes into consideration the wide typology of actors found in practice (incompatible pairs, altruistic donors, and compatible pairs) and handles different matching policies. Additionally, it includes the possibility of evaluating the impact of positive crossmatch of a selected transplant, and of dropouts, in a dynamic environment. Results are compared to those obtained with a complete information model, with knowledge of future events, which provides an upper bound to the objective values. Final results show that shorter time intervals between matches lead to higher number of effective transplants and to shorter waiting times for patients. Furthermore, the inclusion of compatible pairs is essential to match pairs of specific patient-donor blood type. In particular, O-blood type patients benefit greatly from this inclusion.
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