Living donor kidney donation: another form of white coat effect.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Living donor nephrectomy can be associated with increases in blood pressure several years following the procedure, but the best method to assess blood pressure during the living donor evaluation process is unclear. METHODS Living kidney donors underwent casual clinic and ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) and measurement of central aortic pressures at baseline and 6 months following donor nephrectomy. RESULTS There was a significant decline in clinic systolic blood pressure (SBP; p = 0.001) and central aortic systolic pressure (p = 0.011) during the study period. However, average ABPM was unchanged and other measures of central arterial pressures and Augmentation Index were unchanged at 6 months compared to baseline. CONCLUSIONS The remarkable differences between clinic SBP and ambulatory SBP prior to donation, and the disappearance of these differences 6 months later, suggest a substantial white coat effect on SBP associated with living kidney donor evaluation. Also, ABPM represents a better way to assess blood pressure prior to kidney donation.