Health-related quality of life after radical nephrectomy and kidney donation.

The health-related quality of life (HRQoL) concept is frequently applied for the assessment of surgical or other treatment modalities. We evaluated the HRQoL of 57 kidney donors and compared it to: 120 age and sex matched healthy individuals; and 52 patients who underwent nephrectomy due to renal tumor. The Short Form-36 (SF-36), Giessen Subjective Complaints List (GBB-24) and Zerssen's Mood Scale (Bf-S) questionnaires have been used for this purpose. The mean scores of different domains have been calculated for all three questionnaires and compared between the groups. In three out of eight SF-36 items ("Social function", "Bodily pain" and "Vitality") the donors scored significantly better than the controls and patients. In all five GBB-24 items the donors scored higher than the controls and patients. For the "Gastric complaints" the difference was significant. The mood analysis has shown significant differences between the groups in favour of the donors. The HRQoL of living kidney donors is not different from that of healthy subjects and significantly better than HRQoL of urological patients after nephrectomy. The HRQol of living kidney donors and healthy individuals is similar and better than HRQol of the patients operated due to the medical indications. Further prospective studies are needed to increase our knowledge of factors influencing HRQol of the living kidney donors and patients after nephrectomy.