There has never been a safer time to donate a kidney.
The risk of death for people who donate kidneys has fallen by more than half over the past decade, according to a study published Wednesday.
“Organ donation is becoming increasingly safe for people,” said Dr. Dory Segev, a transplant surgeon at NYU Langone Health and lead author of the study.
The overall risk of death for kidney donors has always been low, but advances in surgery and medicine, as well as more careful donor selection, have improved the odds.
Your kidneys play a vital role in your health, filtering harmful toxins from your blood and regulating your blood pressure. Chronic diseases such as diabetes Hypertension too Causes kidney disease — is on the rise, making the need for kidney donors even more urgent.
Almost 90,000 people waiting for kidney transplants In the U.S., the average wait time is about three to five years. Kidneys are the most commonly transplanted organ, with an estimated 27,000 kidney transplants performed annually.
A new study published in 2014 found that JAMAThe doctors looked at data on people who died within 90 days of kidney transplant surgery from 1993 to 2022. The data came from both a scientific registry of transplant recipients and the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, a nonprofit organization that manages the nation's only transplant network chartered by the U.S. Congress.
A total of 164,593 kidney donors were included in the study. Thirty-six died within 90 days of donation.
From 1993 to 2002, a total of 13 deaths occurred after this procedure, with a mortality rate of 3 per 10,000. From 2003 to 2012, there were 18 deaths, with a mortality rate of 2.9 per 10,000.
The number of deaths has fallen significantly from 2013 to 2022, to just 5, or 0.9 deaths per 10,000 people.
During this time, laparoscopic surgery — a minimally invasive technique in which surgeons use small incisions and special tools to remove the kidney — has become the standard of care, Segev said. Before that, patients underwent open nephrectomies, which required a much larger incision, a longer recovery time and a higher risk of complications.
In past decades, male donors and donors with a history of high blood pressure were more likely to die within 90 days of surgery than other donors. Most deaths occurred in the first seven days after surgery. The most common cause of death from the procedure was excessive bleeding, or hemorrhage.
“It's really important that as a community that cares for these patients, we're consistent in our messaging,” said Dr. Qassem Safa, associate medical director of the kidney transplant program at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We're telling patients the truth about the risks they're taking. This study just establishes the fact that this procedure is very safe and the risks are very minimal. But it doesn't mean there's zero risk.”
Many patients who donate a kidney are previously healthy and have no medical problems, so it is vital that the procedure is as safe as possible.
“The first thing we tell donors is that they don't have to donate and there is no medical benefit to donating,” Safa said.
Fortunately, long-term data from organ donors shows that their kidney function is stable and their risk of developing chronic kidney disease is low. Only slightly higher than non-donorsSafa said.
Doctors hope that such reassuring data will ultimately help solve the U.S. donor shortage.
“If there was evidence that being a living donor is becoming increasingly safe over time, more people would be willing to donate their organs and give the gift of life,” said Dr. John Friedewald, medical director of Northwestern Medicine's kidney transplant program.
Friedewald, who was not involved in the study, said the new data could ultimately help doctors get consent from patients about to undergo the procedure.
Tracy McKibben, president of the National Kidney Foundation, donated a kidney to her mother in 2009. Her mother, who had previously been very active and traveled frequently, found herself having to commute to a dialysis center three days a week and was no longer able to do many of the things she enjoyed.
That all changed when McKibben gave her the ultimate gift of all.
“It was a completely different world for her and for me,” she said. “To see her get back to life after so long without having to go on dialysis.”
Fix: (August 28, 2024, 1:46 PM) A previous version of this article had errors in the number of kidney donor deaths and mortality rates. From 1993 to 2002, there were 13 deaths and a mortality rate of 3 per 10,000 people, not a mortality rate of 13 per 10,000 people. From 2003 to 2012, there were a total of 18 deaths and a mortality rate of 2.9 per 10,000 people, not a mortality rate of 18 per 10,000 people. From 2013 to 2022, the mortality rate was 0.9 per 10,000 people, not 0.05 per 10,000 people.
