Perioperative Mortality and Long-term Survival Following Live Kidney Donation

Context More than 6000 healthy US individuals every year undergo nephrectomy for the purposes of live donation; however, safety remains in question because longitudinal outcome studies have occurred at single centers with limited generalizability. Objectives To study national trends in live kidney donor selection and outcome, to estimate short-term operative risk in various strata of live donors, and to compare long-term death rates with a matched cohort of nondonors who are as similar to the donor cohort as possible and as free as possible from contraindications to live donation. Design, Setting, and Participants Live donors were drawn from a mandated national registry of 80 347 live kidney donors in the United States between April 1, 1994, and March 31, 2009. Median (interquartile range) follow-up was 6.3 (3.2-9.8) years. A matched cohort was drawn from 9364 participants of the third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III) after excluding those with contraindications to kidney donation. Main Outcome Measures Surgical mortality and long-term survival. Results There were 25 deaths within 90 days of live kidney donation during the study period. Surgical mortality from live kidney donation was 3.1 per 10 000 donors (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.0-4.6) and did not change during the last 15 years despite differences in practice and selection. Surgical mortality was higher in men than in women (5.1 vs 1.7 per 10 000 donors; risk ratio [RR], 3.0; 95% CI, 1.3-6.9; P=.007), in black vs white and Hispanic individuals (7.6 vs 2.6 and 2.0 per 10 000 donors; RR, 3.1; 95% CI, 1.3-7.1; P=.01), and in donors with hypertension vs without hypertension (36.7 vs 1.3 per 10 000 donors; RR, 27.4; 95% CI, 5.0-149.5; P < .001). However, long-term risk of death was no higher for live donors than for age-and comorbidity-matched NHANES III participants for all patients and also stratified by age, sex, and race. Conclusion Among a cohort of live kidney donors compared with a healthy matched cohort, the mortality rate was not significantly increased after a median of 6.3 years. JAMA. 2010;303(10):959-966