Cardiovascular Disease and Hypertension Risk in Living Kidney Donors : An Analysis of Health Administrative Data in Ontario, Canada

Knowledge of any harm associated with living kidney donation guides informed consent and living donor follow-up. Risk estimates in the literature are variable, and most studies did not use a healthy control group to assess outcomes attributable to donation. We observed a retrospective cohort using health administrative data for donations which occurred in Ontario, Canada between the years 1993 and 2005. There were a total of 1278 living donors and 6359 healthy adults who acted as a control group. Individuals were followed for a mean of 6.2 years (range, 1-13 years) after donation. The primary outcome was a composite of time to death or first cardiovascular event (myocardial infarction, stroke, angioplasty, and bypass surgery). The secondary outcome was time to a diagnosis of hypertension. There was no significant difference in death or cardiovascular events between donors and controls (1.3% vs. 1.7%; hazard ratio 0.7, 95% confidence interval 0.4-1.2). Donors were more frequently diagnosed with hypertension than controls (16.3% vs. 11.9%, hazard ratio 1.4, 95% confidence interval 1.2-1.7) but were also seen more often by their primary care physicians (median [interquartile range] 3.6 [1.9-6.1] vs. 2.6 [1.4-4.3] visits per person year, P