Donor quality of life after living donor liver transplantation: a prospective study.
OBJECTIVE
It is important to determine the health-related quality of life of live donors in liver transplantation.


METHODS
We reviewed 35 live liver donors and prospectively and longitudinally evaluated their health-related quality for 1.5 years post-surgery based on the Short Form-36 version 2 questionnaire. Scores of the donors stratified by the clinical data were analyzed. The study was approved by the University of Tokyo Institutional Review Board (No. 1533).


RESULTS
There was no donor mortality in the donor population studied. The percentage of major complications greater than Clavien's classification grade III was 8.6%. The physical component summary score decreased to 42.9 (p < 0.01) at 3 months, but recovered within 6 months after the operation. The mental component summary scores did not change during the observation period. The stratification study revealed that age and postoperative complications remained significant factors among the high physical component summary scores 3 months after the operation.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings from this survey suggest that liver harvesting does not decrease the donor's quality of life during the 1.5 years following the surgery.
Artificial Organ and Transplantation Surgery Division, Department of Surgery, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8655, Japan.
Junichi
J
Togashi
Yasuhiko
Y
Sugawara
Sumihito
S
Tamura
Noriyo
N
Yamashiki
Junichi
J
Kaneko
Taku
T
Aoki
Kiyoshi
K
Hasegawa
Yoshifumi
Y
Beck
Masatoshi
M
Makuuchi
Norihiro
N
Kokudo
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006304:Health Status; D006498:Hepatectomy / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000523:psychology*; D019520:Living Donors / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011788:Quality of Life; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult