Effect of obese living donors on the outcome and metabolic features in recipients of kidney transplantation

Living kidney donors must be evaluated carefully focusing on risk factors for long-term complications. Our transplant center performs 70% of its kidney transplantations from living sources including 19.9% obese donors. We evaluated the long-term follow-up of recipients of organs from 37 living donor patients with obesity defined by a body mass index (BMI) > 30 kg/m(2). We compared this group with a control group of normal BMI before donation. The follow-up was 50.8 +/- 28.5 months. We observed a lower glomerular filtration rate among organs from obese versus non-obese donors. At the same time we reviewed percentage of acute rejection episodes (ARE), primary allograft function, and surgical complications we observed incidence of ARE higher among the group who received kidneys from obese donors.