Background: Living kidney donation is on the rise and acceptance criteria for potential donors are evolving to include more 'complex' patients such as kidney stone formers. Transplant centers are faced with sparse data on patient outcomes when evaluating potential donors who are stone formers; thus, attitudes and practice can differ greatly between centers.
Methods: We conducted a survey of United States kidney transplant programs to assess current trends in the approach to dealing with stone formers who are evaluated for kidney donation.
Results: Based on the survey results, there appears to be a tendency toward increased acceptance of donors with a history of kidney stones. 77% of responding centers allowed stone formers to donate. Nearly 40% of centers reported that their attitude towards accepting donors with kidney stones has changed over the last 5-10 years. Among these, the overwhelming majority reported that they were more likely to accept these donors.
Conclusions: Such trends are likely based on organ need, as published patient outcomes and evidence-based guidelines are lacking for this unique group of patients. We propose the need for a study to formally evaluate the outcome of stone formers who donate a kidney in order to systematically examine whether appropriately selected stone formers can safely donate.