Kidney donors live just as long as non-donors, researchers find

Jan. 28 -- Kidney donors live as long as non- donors, a finding researchers hope will encourage more donations.

Donors and non-donors of the same age, gender and ethnicity have similar risks for developing kidney failure, research in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine found.

More than 78,000 are waiting for kidneys in the U.S., according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which matches donors to recipients. Most get the organ from someone who died. Living donors are needed to make up the difference, and the researchers hope the findings will spur donations.

"Kidney donation is safe," lead author Hassan Ibrahim, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, said in a Jan. 27 telephone interview. "These results will, hopefully at least, encourage people who have considered donation to approach a transplant center to see if they are a candidate for donation."

Researchers examined 3,698 donation cases at the University of Minnesota from 1963 through 2007. Of that group, 255 men and women were picked for a more detailed study of kidney function and quality of life.

The study found 60 percent of donors had physical and mental health scores above those of the general population. Eleven donors developed kidney failure, a rate lower than the general population.

Faulty Filter

Kidneys are among the most common transplants in the U.S., according to the National Institutes of Health, which funded the study. A transplant may be needed for people with kidney failure caused by diabetes, infections or severe, uncontrollable high blood pressure. Until a transplant occurs, those with chronic kidney disease need to receive dialysis, which helps remove toxic substances from the blood when the kidneys can't.

The average waiting time in the U.S. for a kidney from someone who has died is more than five years, according to doctors Jane Tan and Glenn Chertow, both of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in an accompanying editorial in the journal.

They said the results from Ibrahim's study weren't surprising because those selected as donors are screened to exclude people with diseases like diabetes and high blood pressure. About 99 percent of the 255 people included in the study were white, most were women and the average age at the time of donation was 41.