[Long live the kidney donor]

Kidney transplantation offers longer life expectancy and improves quality of life in selected patients with end-stage renal failure. The availability of living donors is critical, particularly to meet the increasing demand and potentially pre-emptive transplantation. In addition, living donor transplantation is associated with better outcomes on comparison with dialysis or transplants from deceased donors. The major disadvantage of living donation is that complications may occur both directly perioperatively and in the long-term. Two recent studies confirmed that the risk of renal failure among selected living donors is extremely low. This implies that there is no need to alter the existing positive attitude towards living donation. Finding a comparable long-term control group with relevant genetic and non-genetic risk factors remains a challenge to studies looking at long-term effects.