Living kidney donor surgery is low risk for most patients, confirms Mayo Clinic study

ROCHESTER, Minn: The risk of major complications for people who donate a kidney via laparoscopic surgery is minimal. That is the conclusion of a 20-year Mayo Clinic study of more than 3,000 living kidney donors. Only 2.5% of patients in the study experienced major complications, and all recovered completely.

"The results of this study are extremely reassuring for individuals who are considering being living kidney donors. We found that this lifesaving surgery, when performed at experienced transplant centers, is extremely safe," says Timucin Taner, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Division of Transplant Surgery at Mayo Clinic's William J. von Liebig Center for Transplantation and Clinical Regeneration in Minnesota. Dr. Taner is a co-author of the study.

The study was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

The results are significant, given that nearly 90,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for a lifesaving kidney transplant. Patients who receive a kidney from a living donor generally have better outcomes. Living donor kidneys usually function longer than those from deceased donors.

The retrospective, single-center study is believed to be the largest research study to date to examine the risks associated with living kidney donation via laparoscopic surgery. The study involved 3,002 living kidney donors who underwent laparoscopic living kidney donor surgery at the transplant center from Jan. 1, 2000, to Dec. 31, 2019. The study tracked complications that occurred up to 120 days after surgery.