Longitudinal study of living kidney donor glomerular dynamics after nephrectomy.

Background: Over 5,000 living kidney donor nephrectomies are performed annually in the US. While the physiological changes that occur early after nephrectomy are well documented, less is known about the long-term glomerular dynamics in living donors.

Methods: We enrolled 21 adult living kidney donors to undergo detailed long-term clinical, physiological, and radiological evaluation pre-, early post- (median, 0.

The association of predonation hypertension with glomerular function and number in older living kidney donors.

The effect of preexisting hypertension on living donor nephron number has not been established. In this study, we determined the association between preexisting donor hypertension and glomerular number and volume and assessed the effect of predonation hypertension on postdonation BP, adaptive hyperfiltration, and compensatory glomerular hypertrophy. We enrolled 51 living donors to undergo physiologic, morphometric, and radiologic evaluations before and after kidney donation.

Serum relaxin levels and kidney function in late pregnancy with or without preeclampsia.

Objective: Relaxin, a potent pregnancy-related hormone, has been proposed to be a major mediator of renal physiology in normal pregnancy. We wished to test relaxin levels in pregnancy and preeclampsia.

Methods: We performed precise physiologic measurements of kidney function in 38 normal peripartum women and 58 women with preeclampsia.

Effects of aging on glomerular function and number in living kidney donors.

To elucidate the pathophysiologic changes in the kidney due to aging, we used physiological, morphometric, and imaging techniques to quantify GFR and its determinants in a group of 24 older (≥ 55 years) compared to 33 younger (≤ 45 years) living donors. Mathematical modeling was used to estimate the glomerular filtration coefficients for the whole kidney (K(f)) and for single nephrons (SNK(f)), as well as the number of filtering glomeruli (N(FG)). Compared to younger donors, older donors had a modest (15%) but significant depression of pre-donation GFR.

Imprecision of creatinine-based GFR estimates in uninephric kidney donors.

Background And Objectives: To ensure long-term safety of living kidney donors, it is now recommended that they be followed for at least 2 years after donation and that serum creatinine levels be monitored. Such levels are often subjected by clinical laboratories to estimating equations and are reported as estimated GFR (eGFR). The accuracy of such equations in uninephric living donors has yet to be validated.