The safety and efficacy of laparoscopic donor nephrectomy for renal transplantation: an updated meta-analysis

Currently, the laparoscopic technique is widely used for living donor nephrectomy. Does it provides adequate safety and benefits for the living donor? We performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic donor nephrectomy (LDN) as well as an analysis of postoperative quality of life compared with the open donor nephrectomy (ODN).

Eligible studies were identified from electronic databases: Cochrane CENTRAL, PubMed, and EMBASE as of October 2011. Relevant parameters explored by-using Review Manager V5.0 included operative time, warm ischemia time, intraoperative blood loss, hospital stay and time to return to work.

Compared with ODN, LDN showed a shorter hospital stay (days; mean difference [MD]: -1.27, P < .00001) and time to return to work (days; MD: -16.35, P < .00001), less intraoperative blood loss (ml; MD: -101.23, P = .0001) without an increase among donor intraoperative and postoperative complications or compromise of recipient graft function. Hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy (HLDN) showed a shorter warm ischemia time (minutes) than the standard laparoscopic donor nephrectomy (MD: -1.02, P < .00001). We also observed that hospital stay (days) significantly favored SLDN compared with HLDN (MD: 0.33, P < .005), but operative times, intraoperative estimated blood loss, and donor postoperative complications were not significantly different between them. Donor postoperative quality of life revealed only physical functioning and bodily pain scores to significantly favor LDN.

LDN is a safe surgical procedure for a living donor.