Increased risk of ischemic heart disease after kidney donation

Background: Previous reports suggest increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular mortality after kidney donation. In this study we investigate occurrence of ischemic heart disease and cerebrovascular disease, diabetes and cancer in live kidney donors compared with healthy controls eligible for donation.
Methods: Different diagnoses were assessed in 1029 kidney donors and 16084 controls. The diagnoses at follow-up were self-reported for the controls and registered by a physician for the donors. Stratified logistic regression was used to estimate associations with various disease outcomes, adjusted for gender, age at follow up, smoking at baseline, body mass index at baseline, systolic blood pressure at baseline and time since donation.
Results: The mean (standard deviation) observation time was 11.3 (8.1) years for donors versus 16.4 (5.7) years for controls. Age at follow-up was 56.1 (12.4) years in donors vs 53.5 (11.1) years in controls and 44% of donors were males vs 39.3% in the controls.At follow up 35 (3.5%) of the donors had been diagnosed with ischemic heart disease versus 267 (1.7%) of the controls. Adjusted odds ratio for ischemic heart disease was 1.64 (confidence interval 1.10-2.43, P = 0.01) in donors compared with controls. There were no significant differences for the risks of cerebrovascular disease, diabetes or cancer.
Conclusions: During long-term follow-up of kidney donors we find an increased risk of ischemic heart disease compared to healthy controls. This information may be important in the follow-up and selection process of living kidney donors.