[Priority for live kidney donors in transplantation]

Patients in the Netherlands requiring a donor kidney spend 3 to 4 years on average on the transplant waiting list for a kidney from a deceased donor. Post-mortem donor kidneys are in short supply. Consequently, over the past 15 years, an increasingly number of living persons have donated a kidney. This development raises the question as to whether these donors ought to be given priority on the donor kidney waiting list in the event of subsequently suffering from severe renal insufficiency. The Health Council of the Netherlands concludes that there are sound medical-ethical and legal arguments for awarding live kidney donors with end-stage renal failure 500 points in the points system that Eurotransplant uses to determine the position on the waiting list. Adopting this approach would mean that donors would qualify for pre-emptive transplant of a post-mortem donor kidney. The Council is of the opinion that the proposal is reconcilable with national and international legal rules and the principles on which they are based.

[A higher place on the waiting list for kidney transplantation after earlier donation: a matter of give and take]

In May 2011 the Dutch Health Council released an advice regarding living kidney donors who developed end-stage renal disease (ESRD) after donation. These donors with ESRD will have a high priority when they are on the waiting list for kidney transplantation. With this new rule the former donors will be transplanted within 6 weeks and transplantation can preferably be performed preemptively. It is expected that this measure shall prolong the waiting list for a donor kidney for the remaining patients with end stage renal disease by 6 days at most, on a total average waiting period of 4 years.

How should we use age to ration health care? Lessons from the case of kidney transplantation

Competing visions for health reform in the United States and renewed interest in health technology assessment (HTA) have led to fierce national debates about the appropriateness of rationing. Because of a limited supply of organs, kidney transplantation has always required rationing and overt discussion of the ethics that guide it, but the field of transplantation has also contended recently with internal calls for a new rationing system. The aim of the Life Years from Transplantation (LYFT) proposal is to allocate kidneys to patients who obtain the greatest survival benefit from transplantation, which would lengthen the lives of kidney transplant recipients but restrict the ability of older Americans to obtain a transplant. The debate around the LYFT proposal reveals the ethical and policy challenges of identifying which patients should receive a treatment based on the results of cost-effectiveness and other HTA studies. This article argues that attempts to use HTA for healthcare rationing are likely to disadvantage older patients. Guiding principles to help ensure that resources such as kidneys are justly allocated across the life span are proposed.

A conflict of responsibility: no patient left behind

In its program END THE WAIT, the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) outlined four comprehensive strategies to achieve the goal that within 10 years, every individual on the US waiting list will receive a transplant within 1 year of listing. Lifetime immunosuppressive coverage is a critical piece of the foundation of this program. Events in 2009 that were dedicated toward achieving a lifetime immunosuppressive benefit were complicated by legislative challenges and a dynamic that placed oral medications in the ESRD bundling proposal in direct conflict with the potential for the lifetime immunosuppressive benefit. In line with its mission, the NKF could not sacrifice one kidney patient constituency for another. Successful patient-centered organizations stay consistent with their mission. The NKF had to weigh the risk of postponing a long-sought goal and its relationships with other organizations with standards of patient safety and equitable and efficient patient care. In a perfect world, we never have to make such choices. In the real world, we can use such choices to forge new ways and dialogue to achieve better health care for all patients affected by kidney disease.

Kidney transplantation and HIV: does recipient privacy outweigh the donor's right to information?

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

There exists an inherent conflict between a kidney donor's right to know key aspects of a recipient's medical history and specific disease, such as HIV, where federal and state statues protect this information. The authors of the live organ donor consensus group expressly stated the principal of a donor's right to recipient information. This information includes the risks and benefits of not only the donation procedure, but also the risks, benefits, and alternative treatment options of the recipient. In this paper, a case will be presented highlighting this conflict and the ethical and legal reasoning used to resolve it.

DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS

A 22-year-old woman came forward as a directed kidney donor for an HIV-positive individual. The donor and recipient were medically appropriate for kidney donation and transplantation. During the donor advocacy panel review, there was disagreement regarding whether or not the potential donor had the right to know about the HIV status of the potential recipient.

RESULTS

In living kidney transplantation to HIV-positive individuals, the recipient's right to privacy of information outweighs the donor's right to know.

CONCLUSIONS

Although protecting the recipient's right to privacy is paramount, the donor is still entitled to consider factors a priori that could alter their decision to donate. This can be accomplished by informing the donor that they are not entitled to protected health information of the recipient and that their decision to donate should be based on knowing the recipient is medically appropriate for kidney transplantation.

[Regulatory bases of living-donor kidney transplantation]

Living donor kidney transplantation is regulated in Spain by the transplantation law 30/1979 and developed by Royal Decree 2070/1999. These policies permit the living donation of an organ while its function is compensated by the rest of the body. It further specifies that the destination of the organ must be the transplantation in a specific person (this specification allows for the donation, not only among emotionally related, but between people that do not know each other, provided it is done altruistically, without any purpose of profit and without coercion). The donor must be competent, healthy and had reached 18 years old (which is evidenced by a medical certificate) and should be well informed of the consequences of their decision. The donor must give their consent to donation, free from inducement and consciously in the courts of civil registration. In order to guarantee the quality and safety of the procedure, the centers that performed this therapeutic must be authorized both for the nephrectomy and the transplantation.

Paired kidney donations to expand the living donor pool

INTRODUCTION

The shortage of available deceased donors and the longer kidney transplant waiting lists in many countries around the world have placed greater emphasis on living donation (LD) as a means of meeting demand for transplantation in patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD).

METHODS AND RESULTS

Increased LD rates are also driven by less invasive approaches to donor nephrectomy and by the excellent long-term results. LD kidney transplant outcomes are equivalent, if not superior, to those from deceased donors, even when donor and recipient are not genetically related, as is the case with spousal donations, the most frequent cohort of LD. Approximately 30% of willing and otherwise appropriate kidney donor/recipient pairs are biologically incompatible and do not proceed to live donor transplantation. In recent years, a number of strategies have been introduced to expand living donation programs beyond the classical direct donation, to overcome immunological barriers of blood group or HLA sensitization of recipients. New strategies in LD include paired kidney exchange (PKE), altruistic donation, altruistic donor chains and list exchange programs. Other alternative programs are desensitization and transplantation across the blood-type barrier. Regular PKE programs operate nationally in The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, or regionally in South Korea, Romania, the United States and Australia.

CONCLUSIONS

If PKE were performed routinely using 2-way or 3-way PKE and altruistic donor chains, the rate of kidney transplants could increase by between 7% and 10%.

Giving until it hurts?: Altruistic donation of solid organs

The increased need for organs has led to greater acceptance of stranger or unrelated kidney donation. This broadening of the donor pool introduces challenges to the evaluation of such donors. Questions are raised regarding the obligation of an evaluator to explore the depth of the donor's intentions. The concept of altruism is explored as well as its impact on the consent process.

Nepalese kidney transplant recipient in a follow up clinic: related and unrelated living donor

A cohort retrospective study was conducted on all follow up kidney transplant recipients at Transplant Follow up Clinic from June 16, 2003 to July 15, 2008. The main objective of this study was to find out the demographic pattern of the kidney transplant recipients and type of donors. Among 452 recipients, the transplantation were done in India (449), Germany (2) and in the USA (1) with male to female ratio of 3:1. Kidney donors were unrelated 315 (69.69%), related 134 (29.43%) and some did not disclose 4 (0.88%). Most of the kidney transplantation (93.75%) were done in 45 different hospitals in India and about three quarters (71.7%) of them were operated in the private hospitals in various states of India; only 2 (4.16%) in Germany and 1 (2.08%) in USA. Newar was the largest population 142 (31.4%) and second largest group was Mangol 124 (27.4.4%) that comprised of Gurung, Rai, Magar, Tamang etc. Brahmins were the third largest population 91 (20.1%). In this study the youngest recipients was 14 years and the oldest was of 75 years. The mean age was 41 (SD 13.84). This study showed that 35 (7.7%) died, 8 (1.7%) reported rejection and underwent re-transplantation and 238 patient have lost follow up till early 2008. Kidney transplantation should be promoted as it is cheaper compared to dialysis in the long run. This study found that unrelated kidney donors have outnumbered the related donors in Nepalese kidney transplant recipients which emphasize the importance of unambiguous documentation and also a provision of lawful action against the middle-men if found involved in an illegal kidney related activities in Nepal. Organ transplantation is an important integral part of human health and should be regularize and promote lawfully to protect humans from trafficking for kidney, possible kidnapping, killing and stealing.

A flexible national living donor kidney exchange program taking advantage of a central histocompatibility laboratory: the Dutch model

The shortage of deceased donor kidneys for transplantation has resulted in the expansion of living donation programs. A number of possibilities have been explored, since it became clear that donors do not need to be genetically related to their recipients. Apart from classical direct donation, other options such as paired exchange, list exchange, altruistic donation and domino paired exchange programs have been implemented. In the Netherlands, patients who cannot be transplanted with their potential living donor because of ABO blood group incompatibility or a positive crossmatch, have the option to participate in a national paired kidney exchange program. The practical issues related to this program are described. The 5-years experience with the Dutch kidney exchange program is very positive as, so far, 42% of the recipients included have been transplanted. Recommendations are given for a successful implementation of a common kidney exchange program of different transplantation centers focusing on the advantage of a central histocompatibility laboratory.