Kidney transplantation is the best treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease and recipients of living kidney donors fare better than recipients of deceased donors. In view of the shortage of organ supply and the long waiting list, expansion of the living donor pool has been sought. Importantly, donor acceptance criteria must first and foremost be grounded in concerns for donor safety....

PURPOSE OF REVIEW Living kidney donation improves the lives of those with kidney failure, but there are potential risks to the donor. We review two recent publications that describe the long-term risk of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in living kidney donors. RECENT FINDINGS One study reported that the long-term risk (median follow-up 15.1 years) of ESRD was, in relative terms, 11-fold higher...

BACKGROUND Much remains to be done to facilitate the transplantation process for patients with end-stage renal disease. The aim here was to explore these patients' experiences of the donation process and factors related to whether the actual donors of the recipients were living or deceased and describe which issues needed attention in a quality development project. METHOD A specially construc...

PURPOSE We evaluated unrelated living kidney donation in the United States and examined the characteristics of unrelated donor-recipient pairs. MATERIALS AND METHODS We accessed United Network for Organ Sharing files to identify adult living donor renal transplant recipients who received a transplant between 1997 and 2007. We evaluated factors associated with unrelated donation and compared a...