Kidney donors may face slightly higher risk of ESRD.

The CNN (2/12) “The Chart” blog reports that research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that individuals who donate a kidney “may face a slightly increased risk of suffering from end-stage renal disease themselves.” Researchers “compared living kidney donors to healthy individuals who would also likely qualify to donate but never did.” The investigators found that “while the actual donors had an estimated lifetime risk of 90 out of 10,000 for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), the nondonors’ risk was slightly lower at 14 out of 10,000.”

        HealthDay (2/12, Preidt) reports that the likelihood of “kidney failure among donors varied by race, with a rate of 51 per 10,000 among black donors and 23 per 10,000 among white donors.” This “greater risk among black donors is not fully understood, the study authors noted.”

        MedPage Today (2/12, Fiore) reports, “In an accompanying editorial, John Gill, MD, of the University of British Columbia, and Marcello Tonelli, MD, of the University of Alberta, both in Canada, said the findings suggest that prospective donors ‘should be informed that (should they develop a condition after donation that causes loss of kidney function) their lower residual kidney function after donation may increase the risk of future ESRD.’”