To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the impact of donor nephrectomy laterality on future pregnancy as well as future kidney function among donors. In our study, we investigated the hypothesized benefit of right over left donor nephrectomy from the donor perspective. Conversely, the potential advantage of left over right donor nephrectomy was previously studied; mainly from the recipient perspective. Traditionally, surgeons prefer to transplant the left kidney as it has a longer renal vein. In an analysis of OPTN/UNOS database that included about 60,000 live-donor transplants, right donor nephrectomy recipients had significantly higher conversion from laparoscopic to open donor nephrectomy, delayed graft function and graft thrombosis as a cause of graft failure, and significantly lower graft survival. Nevertheless, the authors concluded that as these differences are small, the choice of nephrectomy side should be primarily dictated by surgical team preference and experience [4]. A meta-analysis of laparoscopic donor nephrectomy that included 15 studies and more than 3000 kidney transplants conversely showed that left laparoscopic donor nephrectomy was associated with significantly longer operative time, more blood loss and more donor intraoperative complications. However, both sides were comparable relative to the rate of conversion to open nephrectomy, delayed graft function, recipient and donor post-operative complications and one year graft survival and recommended left donor nephrectomy whenever possible due to longer renal vein making surgery easier [5]. It is interesting that the majority of donor nephrectomy in both studies were left sided (86.1% and 78% respectively) reflecting the general trend of surgeons to perform left donor nephrectomy. On the other hand, retrieval of the available data of our all transplant series showed that left donor nephrectomy was performed in only 1403 (60.4%) out of 2323 kidney transplants. The relatively lower percentage of left donor nephrectomy among our series compared to the previous two large studies may be attributed to our preference to perform right nephrectomy among female donors who have the potential to get pregnant after donation and to our routine use of donor renal isotope scan as a contributing tool in choosing the side of donor nephrectomy [6].
Interestingly, an abstract published in 2017 explored the impact of donor nephrectomy side on long-term donor outcome in terms of suprarenal function and suggested that left (compared to right) donor nephrectomy may predispose live donors to future adrenal insufficiency with more fatigue and poorer quality of life [6]. In addition, there was a report on a young lady who got pregnant shortly after undergoing left donor nephrectomy with subsequent acute kidney injury late during pregnancy presumably due to pregnancy-related right hydronephrosis [8]. More than half of pregnant ladies develop hydronephrosis late during pregnancy due to both mechanical and hormonal causes [9]. Hydronephrosis is more pronounced on the right side due to different anatomy of the right compared to the left ureter making the right ureter more liable to compression as it crosses the iliac artery at the pelvic brim and crossed by the right ovarian vein, compression by the dextrorotated uterus and crossing right ovarian vein and protection of the left ureter by the gas-filled sigmoid colon [10, 11] .However, laterality difference in terms of urologic complications during pregnancy is rarely evaluated [8, 11]. In our study, right and left donor nephrectomy group ladies were comparable in terms of urologic complications during post-donation pregnancy as well as blood pressure, kidney function, urine analysis and ultrasound findings at last follow up contrary to our expectation that donors with a solitary right kidney would be more liable to urologic complications of pregnancy and subsequent impact on kidney function. Nevertheless, our results could be supported by extrapolation from studies of the general population that did not show an increased prevalence of urinary tract infection [12] or stone kidney disease [13–15] during pregnancy despite the known anatomic and physiologic effects of pregnancy on the urinary system. In addition, donors included in our study didn’t have a periodic follow up renal ultrasound throughout pregnancy and we, therefore, are not confident whether they experienced hydronephrosis and whether those with a solitary right (compared to left) kidney had a significantly higher prevalence and/or degree of hydronephrosis during their post-donation pregnancy. Moreover, no other specific studies among kidney donors or even among single-kidney ladies are available for comparison.
The overall prevalence of lower urinary tract infection among our ladies was 13.5% during their post-donation pregnancies (23 infections in 170 pregnancies); much higher than that reported among other ladies. Although the prevalence of symptomatic urinary tract infection among ladies of the general population during pregnancy is not exactly known, it is suggested to be 1-2.3% [9, 16, 17]. This difference may be attributed to the method of diagnosis being mainly on clinical basis among our ladies. It may also reflect a real increase in prevalence of urinary tract infection in post-kidney donation pregnancy. Moreover, it is likely that socioeconomic standard might affect the occurrence of urinary tract infection among our pregnant ladies as our reported prevalence was closer to that (8.9%) reported in a cohort of more than 4000 pregnant ladies from Bangladesh [18]. This could explain the wide range of prevalence (3–35%) in a study which included pregnant ladies from five continents [19].
Minimally invasive donor nephrectomy is gaining more popularity. Laparoscopic donor nephrectomy has become the standard of care in some centers. Nevertheless, left nephrectomy is more preferred for laparoscopic compared to open nephrectomy due to technical aspects [3]. At our center, laparoscopic donor nephrectomy has been exclusively performed on the left side [20]. Our results may increase the use of laparoscopic nephrectomy among our lady donors with possible improvement of post-donation morbidity and hospitalization period.
In conclusion, we could not observe a notable difference in terms of pregnancy-related urinary complications or long-term outcome among ladies who have a remaining right kidney after kidney donation. Despite that the endeavor to retrieve the right rather than the left kidney among lady kidney donors could give them the benefit of the doubt in regard to possible urological complications during their subsequent pregnancies, this policy is likely an overdoing practice and should only be adopted when it doesn’t jeopardize the decision based on any other factor which could affect either recipient and donor outcome. Larger-scale studies are needed to support this conclusion.