NIV Congres

Background: The first unspecified, formerly known as, altruistic or good Samaritans, was performed in 2000 in Rotterdam. After the ‘Big Donor Show’ in 2007, these unspecified living kidney donors are a rapidly growing source of living donors. Here we describe the unspecified living kidney donors who have been reported from 2000 until now in all 8 kidney transplant centers in The Netherlands.

Methods: We asked the centers about the registered unspecified donors, the number of donors with a contraindication and their reasons and the number of unspecified donors who actually donated.

Results: From January 2000 till January 2013, 284 unspecified donors started with the screening evaluation in all 8 centers. The median numbers of registered donors per center was 24 (range 7-121). After the screening process 106 donors have a contraindication to become a living donor. The reasons for refusal were 35 on their own initiative, 42 for medical reasons, 24 for psychological, and 5 for social-economic. 142 donors have already donated their kidney, 10 donors are still waiting for an operation and 26 donors are in screening on the out-patient clinic. The blood type of these 142 donors was 75 times O (53%), 52 times A (37%), 8 times B (5%) and 7 times AB (5%). 50% of the donors were female. 56 donors donated directly to a recipient on the wait list and 86 in a domino-paired procedure: 68 made 2 transplants possible, 13 donors donated in a triplet construction and 5 donors in a quartet procedure. So these 86 unspecified donors were enrolled in chain constructions which resulted in 195 kidney transplants.

Conclusion: In total 142 unspecified donors made 251 kidney transplants possible. With 86 chain constructions we have increased the number of kidney transplants by 127% from 86 to 195. Including all unspecified donors in domino-paired procedures would increase the number of transplants even more. All unspecified donors should be enrolled in chain constructions.