Division of Nephrology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA 02111, USA.
Am J Kidney Dis. 2011 Sep;58(3):343-8. doi: 10.1053/j.ajkd.2011.06.007. Epub 2011 Jul 23.
There is a desperate need for kidney donors. Twenty-five years ago, we urged more widespread acceptance of unrelated living donors for kidney transplantation. Since then, 2 of us have donated a kidney to an unrelated recipient. In our view, the major challenges for living donor transplantation today are to improve access to this extraordinary gift of life and ensure its safety. Our perspective is that altruism is the motivation for most living kidney donors and the decision to donate represents a shared responsibility among the donor, the donor's physician, and the team of professionals at the transplant center. Thus, sound knowledge of the benefits and risks to donors and recipients is required for informed decisions, and all parties share in the responsibility for the outcomes after living kidney donation. We encourage our colleagues and agencies within the US Department of Health and Human Services to accept the responsibility to do their utmost to provide access to this life-enhancing procedure and systematically evaluate the safety of kidney donation as it evolves to meet the needs of more of our patients.
目前非常急需肾脏捐献者。25 年前，我们曾大力提倡更广泛地接受非亲属活体供者进行肾脏移植。从那以后，我们中的 2 人向非亲属受者捐献了肾脏。在我们看来，目前活体供肾移植的主要挑战是改善获取这种非凡的生命礼物的途径，并确保其安全性。我们认为，利他主义是大多数活体肾脏捐献者的动机，捐献决定代表着捐献者、捐献者的医生和移植中心专业团队之间的共同责任。因此，为了做出明智的决策，需要充分了解供者和受者的获益和风险，并且在活体肾脏捐献后，所有各方都要共同承担结果的责任。我们鼓励我们在美国卫生与公众服务部的同事和机构承担起责任，尽最大努力提供这种增强生命的程序，并系统地评估肾脏捐献的安全性，因为随着它的发展，要满足更多患者的需求，其安全性也需要不断改进。
