Current Canadian initiatives to reimburse live organ donors for their non-medical expenses.

Living organ donors frequently incur non-medical expenses for travel, accommodation, prescription drugs, loss of income, and child care in conjunction with organ donation. Despite international precedent and widespread public support, Canada currently lacks a unified strategy to reimburse donors for these expenses. In 2005, we communicated with 78 individuals within the field of Canadian transplantation to identify which initiatives for reimbursement of living donors existed in each province.

Meta-analysis: risk for hypertension in living kidney donors.

Background: The risk for hypertension after kidney donation remains uncertain.

Purpose: To see whether normotensive adults who donate a kidney develop higher blood pressure and risk for hypertension compared with nondonor adults acting as control participants.

Data Sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Science Citation Index were searched from 1966 until November 2005 for articles published in any language.

The direct and indirect economic costs incurred by living kidney donors-a systematic review.

Background: Despite the many benefits of living donor kidney transplantation, economic consequences can result for donors. We reviewed studies which quantified the direct and indirect costs incurred by living kidney donors, in order to understand the strengths and limitations of existing literature.

Methods: We identified relevant studies in MEDLINE, EMBASE and ECONOLIT bibliographic databases, in the Science Citation Index and study reference lists.

Dialyzer reactions in a patient switching from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis.

Many terms have been used to describe the collection of signs and symptoms triggered by the initial use of dialyzers. These reactions can be divided into Type A (hypersensitivity reactions, with the incidence of 4/100,000) and Type B (nonspecific reactions, incidence 3-5/100). Many different mechanisms have been postulated, including complement activation, pulmonary leukostasis, hypersensitivity to ethylene oxide, interaction between the AN69 membrane and angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors, and dialysate contamination.