Chylous ascites secondary to laparoscopic donor nephrectomy

Live donor renal transplantation offers many significant advantages over cadaveric donor transplantation. Yet living donation continues to be underused, accounting for less than 30% of all donor renal transplants. In an attempt to remove the disincentives to live donation, Ratner et al. developed laparoscopic donor nephrectomy (LDN). LDN is gaining acceptance in the transplant community. The overriding concern must always be the safety and welfare of the donor. To this end, potential complications of LDN must be identified and discussed. We present a patient who developed the complication of chylous ascites from LDN. To improve the laparoscopic technique further, a discussion of its successes and complications needs to be encouraged. To this end, we present chylous ascites as a potential complication after LDN. We also offer suggestions to minimize the likelihood of this complication.