title: Laparoscopic versus open donor nephrectomy in Germany: impact on donor health-related quality of life and willingness to donate.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Laparoscopic living donor nephrectomy (LDN) offers multiple advantages to the donor. Since 1999 LDN has become the only surgical approach for living kidney donation in our department. To our knowledge a donor health-related quality of life (QoL) has not yet been performed with standardized and validated questionnaires to compare laparoscopic with open nephrectomy. We therefore performed a study with two questionnaires (SF-36/GBB-24) and one set of open questions for all donors in our department.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questionnaires were sent out to all donors between 1983 and 2001 with at least a 1-year follow-up. To exclude a bias a maximum response rate was sought; donors who did not answer were recontacted as well as their recipients or their physicians to motivate them for participation.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The response rate was (89.8%). Except for less limb pain in the laparoscopy group, no difference could be detected for donors QoL with respect to the surgical method. Willingness to donate again was not affected by the surgical method. Nevertheless if asked again today, most donors want laparoscopic kidney retrieval.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Donors health-related QoL is not affected by the surgical method when queried retrospectively. Nevertheless, most donors today would favor laparoscopy, if they could chose again. How laparoscopy affects a reluctant donor to step forward must be determined in a prospective study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Urology, Charité University Hospital (CCM) of Humboldt University Berlin, Schumannstrasse 20-21, D-10098 Berlin, Germany. markus.giessing@charite.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Giessing
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reuter
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Deger
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tüllmann
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Hirte
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Budde
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fritsche
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Slowinski
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Dragun
authors.forename: H H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Neumayer
authors.forename: S A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Loening
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schönberger
mesh_terms: D001290:Attitude; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005858:Germany; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000379:methods*; D009392:Nephrectomy / Q000379:methods*; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014019:Tissue Donors / Q000523:psychology