Exclusion Reasons of Living Kidney Donor Candidates: A Single-Center Experience

OBJECTIVE: Due to severe organ shortage, living kidney donors are important choices for transplantation. In Muslim countries, such as Turkey, living kidney donors are the main source of donor pool. In the literature, reasons for living donor exclusion are reported from several countries. However, there is no published study that focused on exclusion reasons of donor candidates in Turkey where living kidney transplantation rate is 73.4%. The goal of this retrospective study was to examine the exclusion reasons for donation among living kidney donor candidates at a single center in Turkey.

MATERIAL and METHODS: A total 538 adults were evaluated as a living kidney donor candidate between December 1988 and January 2012. Evaluation outcome, exclusion reasons and demographic data were examined from electronic file system and immunology laboratory records.

RESULTS: In this period 451 kidney transplantations (38.6% cadaveric, 61.4% living donor) was performed. Overall 261 (48.5%) donor candidates who underwent evaluation could not donate. We were able to find the precise cause of exclusion of 86 donors (33%). Among excluded donor candidates the most common exclusion reason was medical causes (64%) such as diabetes mellitus, low glomerular filtration rate and hypertension.

CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that medical causes are significant exclusion reasons for living kidney donation at our center.