ROCHESTER, Minn. -- An improved model to select who gets a liver transplant could potentially avert 7% of deaths on the waiting list, researchers here said.

Adding low serum sodium concentration to the Model for End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score currently used to allocate organs made a significant difference in where many patients with low sodium would have been ranked on the priority list for a transplant, according to W. Ray Kim, M.D., of the Mayo Clinic, and colleagues.

Indeed, in 2006, using the new model -- dubbed MELDNa -- would have changed the priority for transplant of 110 of the 477 patients who died on the waiting list, the researchers reported in the Sept. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.