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Author Topic: WSU physician finds kidney donation increases hypertension in African-Americans  (Read 2555 times)

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Offline Clark

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http://prognosis.med.wayne.edu/article/wsu-physician-finds-kidney-donation-increases-hypertension-in-africanamericans

WSU physician finds kidney donation increases hypertension in African-Americans

Donating a kidney for transplant patients increases the risk of high blood pressure in African-American donors, according to a study conducted by Wayne State University School of Medicine physicians.

The findings, presented at the American Society of Nephrology’s 44th annual Kidney Week meeting in Philadelphia in November, showed that African-American kidney donors recorded a 2.4 times increased risk of developing hypertension within seven years of the donation surgery.

Study leader Mona Doshi, M.D., assistant professor of Internal Medicine and medical director of Renal Transplant Services, Harper Transplant Program, said the study compared African-American living kidney donors with healthy African-American counterparts identified from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults cohort. Those healthy individuals were medically suitable for live kidney donation but were non-donors.

“We were able to match 103 donors to 235 non-donors with respect to age, gender, systolic blood pressure and duration of follow-up time,” she said. Even accounting for the predilection for hypertension in African-Americans, “the differences in incidence of hypertension between the two groups suggest that donation increases the risk.”

Donating a kidney is not known to lead to high blood pressure in Caucasians, she said.

The study examined 138 African-Americans who donated a kidney and 216 considered suitable candidates for donation. None of the 138 donors had high blood pressure before the surgery, Dr. Doshi said.

The study defined hypertension as an average blood pressure greater than 140/90 and the use of anti-hypertensive medications. At the mean follow-up period of seven years after the kidney donor surgery, 50 donors -- or 42 percent – exhibited high blood pressure. Compounding the problem, the study found that of those 50 donors with hypertension, 26 (52 percent) were not receiving treatment. In the remaining 24 subjects who were on medication, they hypertension of 10 (42 percent) was not adequately controlled.

Dr. Doshi said she fears the findings may exacerbate the scarcity of African-American kidney donors. Historical data illustrate that African-Americans do not register as living kidney donors as readily as members of other ethnicities and races. While one-third of patients on the organ waiting list are African-Americans, only 15 percent of live kidney donors are African-Americans.

“This should not frighten potential donors because they may not develop hypertension after a donation, and even if they do, they can successfully lead full lives by adopting a healthier lifestyle, seeing their primary care physicians regularly and monitoring and getting treatment for high blood pressure,” she said. “We already battle a number of perceptions about organ donation and transplants in the African-American community. We really need the African-American community to assist us in helping African-American patients.”
Unrelated directed kidney donor in 2003, recipient and I both well.
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Elected to the OPTN/UNOS Boards of Directors & Executive, Kidney Transplantation, and Ad Hoc Public Solicitation of Organ Donors Committees, 2005-2011
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