Background: Older living kidney donors remain controversial because of their physiological decline in glomerular filtration rate and their increased susceptibility of surgical complications. Little is known about the quality of life (QOL) of this elderly group. The purpose of this study is to examine surgical outcome and the QOL in older living donors.
Patients and methods: All 105 consecutive living donors who underwent a laparoscopic donor nephrectomy between June 2002 and February 2006 were prospectively included in the study. Intra- and postoperative complications were measured. Quality of life was recorded preoperatively and at several endpoints postoperatively. Older donors were defined as 55 years and older.
Results: There were no significant differences in intra- and postoperative complication rates and 1-year graft survival rate between both groups. Elderly donors (n=34) had both a significant lower postoperative pain at rest at day 1 compared with the younger group (P=0.019) and a lower total pain score in the analysis for the whole follow-up period (P=0.002). Although small solitary significant differences in Short Form-36 Health Survey, Multidimensional Fatigue Inventory-20 and visual analogue scale measuring pain, between both groups were detected, in general QOL of older donors was not different than of younger donors.
Conclusion: Although small solitary significant differences exist with respect to pain, social functioning and mental health older donors, in general, have similar surgical outcome and quality of life when compared with younger donors. There is no need to exclude older donors in screening programs for transplantation.