When it comes to organ transplants, people are more likely to find matching donors among those who share their ethnicity or race.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the immune systems of African-Americans tend to be more sensitized than those of Caucasians, meaning they are more likely to reject foreign tissue. One technique that is helping to counter this is plasmapheresis, a procedure that removes antibodies from a patient's blood, thereby reducing the risk of organ rejection.