The Evaluation of Living Kidney Donors: How Long Is Too Long?

Living donor kidney transplantation (LDKT) is the preferred treatment for chronic kidney failure, but the annual number of LDKTs performed in the United States has declined since 2004 and remained at less than 6,000 per year from 2011 to 2017. This decline likely arose from multiple causes,1 including growing awareness of the small yet real long-term risks of living kidney donation.2