Living kidney donors requiring transplantation: focus on African Americans

Risks of kidney donation include a poorly characterized risk of late kidney failure. We hypothesized that African Americans (AA) kidney donors were at greater risk for kidney failure. The United Network for Organ Sharing/Organ Procurement Transplantation Network database was searched for patients who previously donated a kidney and were subsequently placed on the kidney transplant waiting list. We then compared the race of donors listed for kidney transplant to the race of all living donors during the same time period. Between 1993 and 2005, 8889 donors (14.3%) were AA and 42,419 (68.1%) were Caucasian. During this same time period, 102 previous kidney donors developed kidney failure and were listed for kidney transplantation. Although AAs comprised 14.3% of all living kidney donors, they constituted 44% of donors reaching the waiting list (P<0.001). These data provide indirect evidence that the risk of kidney failure may be exaggerated in AA donors.