As part of our Continuing Medical Education (CME) programme for Transplant Coordinators, a guest lecture on ‘Evaluation of potential donors and recipients of kidney transplant’ was organized at MOHAN Foundation on 19^th October 2015. The speaker was Dr. Anirban Bose, Associate Professor of Medicine, Transplant Nephrology, Kidney and Pancreas transplant, University of Rochester, New York, USA.

Dr. Bose said that studies have shown that patients who receive kidney transplants live three times longer than those on dialysis. His lucid talk covered not only the medical aspects of evaluation of potential donors and recipients, but also gave pointers to address the ethical and moral implications. He stressed the need to ensure the safety of living donors and transplant recipients. His talk was based on the European Renal Best Practice guideline that was produced by 11 organisations and appeared in the Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation journal in 2013.

He laid out, in a systematic and easy-to-recall manner, the objectives and process of pre-transplant evaluation of a recipient, deceased donor and living donor. In the US, an Independent Donor Advocate (IDA) or Team, determines a candidate’s suitability for donation and coordinates the medical evaluation of a potential living donor, so that there is no conflict of interest. The psychosocial and renal-focused evaluations are important components while assessing a living donor.

The audience asked queries on allocation criteria, rejection and the risks to living donors. Dr.Bose said that the risk of dying from living donor surgery was 0.04%. The risk of end-stage kidney disease, and the need for dialysis or to receive a kidney transplant was between 0.10 to 0.52% higher if the prospective donor was African American.