Influence of the kidney histology at the time of donation on long term kidney function in living kidney donors

Living donation is the best choice for kidney transplantation, obtaining long-lasting good results for the recipient. Some concern still remains regarding the donor's long-term health. Kidney biopsy was routinely performed in our donor population at the time of donation many years ago. We found the existence of morphological kidney disease in those samples, in spite of normal clinical evaluations before donation. We attempted to correlate those abnormalities with long-term clinical outcomes. Donors were at least 10 years after surgery. A medical interview, including the SF-36 Health Survey, laboratory evaluation, and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring was performed on 27 donors meeting the inclusion criteria. Two donors had died after donation from unrelated causes with no known nephropathy. Histological analysis showed abnormalities in 16 of 29 donors. We found an increased prevalence of hypertension compared to the general population. Interestingly, there was no proteinuria in the donor population, and none developed clinical nephropathy. All subjects felt emotionally rewarded with donation, stating that their lives had no limitations. Our results suggest that kidney biopsy is neither necessary nor useful prior to donation because, although many donors had morphological kidney disease, none developed clinical nephropathy in the long term.