Attitude and approach of people who live in southeastern Anatolia region on tissue and organ transplantation.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes and the approach of the people living in the southeastern anatolia region and the impact of the lack of education on them. MEASUREMENTS: We used questionnaires consisting of 15 questions that were given to 145 people to be completed in 2 hours. The questionnaire assessed their knowledge, attitudes, and awareness of organ donation. RESULTS: We asked whether they were well-informed about organ donation; 50% did not feel well-informed. CONCLUSIONS: These data confirm the great lack of knowledge about organ donation in the southeastern anatolia region.

The assessment of long-term clinic and laboratory data of living related kidney donors.

Living-donor kidney transplantations are more common in Turkey. The present study, therefore, investigated the structural changes in the remaining kidney and their impacts on the outcomes of 71 donors who underwent nephrectomy. Among 123 screened living-donor transplantations performed between 2001 and 2008, information was available on 71. The study group included 37 female and 34 male donors with ages ranging between 20 and 68 years (mean, 45 ± 9 years). The donors had a median follow-up of 7.2 years. We investigated renal function and creatinine clearance as well as the presence of proteinuria and/or hypertension before versus after nephrectomy. Healthy individuals referred to our blood center were included as the control group. A comparison of pre- versus post-nephrectomy with control group data did not show any significant correlations between serum creatinine levels, creatinine clearances, and the presence of proteinuria relative to post-donation years. In contrast, we identified an increased prevalence of hypertension: Stage 1 in 4 patients before versus 22 subjects after nephrectomy. A key finding of this study was the slight increase in the number of hypertensive donors. Hypertension is, therefore, the most critical parameter to monitor donors in countries with a high proportion of living donors.