Editorial To Err Is Human: Lessons from Patient Safety Research for Transplant Care

The unrelenting tide of biomedical innovation has influenced kidney transplant care in profound ways, causing major overall improvement. The incidence of acute graft rejection has dropped precipitously, there-by changing the “natural history ” of a renal allograft. As acute graft rejection rates continue to decrease, many had expected that long-term graft survival would subsequently increase; however, this has not been the case. Although researchers have amassed a growing body of literature over the last decade exam-ining immunosuppressive regimens, histologic diag-noses, and ever more sensitive biochemical markers of impending rejection, the problem persists. In this issue of CJASN, Taber et al. examine long-term graft rejection through a different lens by reporting on ad