Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Kidney Donors at First Check: A Single-Center Experience

Kidney transplant is the best treatment for patients with end-stage kidney disease. In many regions of the world, including the Middle East, most kidney transplants are from living donors. In contrast to recipients, data for living donors remain scarce. Here, we describe living donor baseline characteristics at first hospital check at a single center in Baghdad, Iraq.

We collected and analyzed demographic, laboratory, imaging, and histocompatibility data from donor records at the Nephrology and Renal Transplantation Center, Medical City-Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq, from July 2022 to September 2022.

We included 124 kidney donors (56.4% male) who donated their kidneys 1 to 3 years previous to our study, with a mean age of 34.84 ± 10.04 years and mean body mass index (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) of 27.11 ± 2.12. Most donors donated their kidneys to a firstdegree relative (69.2%); blood group O was the most prevalent (47.5%). More than half of the donors were unemployed. Histocompatibility testing showed that 40% of the donors had >3 human leukocyte antigen mismatches with their recipients, and 30% of the recipients were high-risk sensitized patients with a calculated panel reactive antibody >50%. Regarding the virus status, 68.5% of the donors tested positive for cytomegalovirus immunoglobulin G, 8% of the transplants were high-risk cytomegalovirus status, and 43.5% tested positive for Epstein-Barr virus immunoglobulin G. Renal imaging showed that 75.8% of donors had a single artery and 24.1% had a double artery (26.6% double left, 40% double right, and 33.3% both).

For living transplant procedures at a single center in Iraq, most were from related donors. Most donors are unemployed, which mandates future health and social support. High immunological and viral risks must not be ignored in a single center with living related donors.