[Living kidney donation]

Abstract

Objectives: To review ethical, legal and technical aspects of living kidney donor surgery.

Material and methods: An exhaustive systematic review of the scientific literature was performed in the Medline database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) and Embase (http://www.embase.com) using different associations of the following keywords: Donor nephrectomy; Kidney paired donation; Kidney transplantation; Laparoscopic nephrectomy; Living donor; Organs trafficking; Robotic assisted nephrectomy; Vaginal extraction. French legal documents have been reviewed using the government portal (http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr). Articles were selected according to methods, language of publication and relevance. A total of 6421 articles were identified; after careful selection, 161 publications were considered of interest and were eligible for our review.

Results: The ethical debate focuses on organ shortage, financial incentive, organ trafficking and the recent data suggesting a small but significant increase risk for late renal disease in donor population. Legal decisions aim to increase the number of kidneys available for donation, such as kidney-paired donation that faces several obstacles in France. Laparoscopic approach became widely used, while robotic-assisted donor nephrectomy failed to demonstrate improved outcome as compared with other minimal invasive techniques.

Conclusion: Minimally invasive living donor nephrectomy aims to limit side effects in the donor without increasing the morbidity in this specific population of healthy persons; long term surveillance to prevent the onset of renal disease in mandatory.

Keywords: Don croisé; Donneur vivant; Donor nephrectomy; Extraction vaginale; Kidney paired donation; Kidney transplantation; Laparoscopic nephrectomy; Living donor; Néphrectomie donneur; Organs trafficking; Trafic d’organes; Transplantation rénale.