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Benefits and risks of living organ donation

If you are exploring living donation, it’s important to weigh the possible benefits and risks of donating. 

The possible benefits of donating include:

  • Knowing you’ve helped someone live a longer life

  • Sometimes the screening process can find health problems early so they can be treated.

The possible risks of donating include:

  • Medical considerations

  • Financial considerations

  • Emotional and social considerations

These risks are described below.

Medical considerations of organ donation

What are the risks during surgery?

Normally, surgeons remove the kidney with laparoscopic surgery. This is when they remove the kidney through an opening only a few inches long. However, if there are problems during a laparoscopic surgery, which is very rare, they may have to make the opening larger and recovery may take longer.

Other very rare risks may include:

  • Bleeding

  • Injury to nearby organs

  • Problems from the anesthesia (medicines to make someone unconscious and unable to feel pain during surgery) such as an allergic reaction

What are the risks after surgery?

Right after surgery, donors may have some minor, short-term discomfort, such as:

  • Bloating

  • Nausea (feeling sick to your stomach)

  • Scars and pain

  • Feeling tired and weak

  • Hernia (a bulge or lump when part of an organ or tissue in the body pushes through an opening or weak spot in a muscle wall)

Very few donors have very rare, more serious problems from surgery, including:

  • Problems from being put to sleep, such as confusion after surgery, pneumonia (lung infection), stroke, or heart attack

  • Infection

  • Fever

  • Bleeding and blood clots

These more serious problems happen in less than 5% of donors (less than 1 in 20 donors). And the risk of death is less than 0.03% (less than 3 in 10,000 donors).

What are the risks during recovery?

During recovery, donors may feel tired for a few weeks. While the stitches from the surgery heal, they might feel:

  • Tenderness

  • Itching

  • Pain

From the gas the surgeon uses to see better during the surgery, donors may:

  • Feel discomfort

  • Have shoulder pain — gas left in the body can move up to the shoulder

Other very rare, more serious problems may include:

  • Infection

  • Pneumonia (lung infection)

  • Blood clots

What are the risks after recovery?

Most donors who follow a healthy lifestyle after surgery are just as healthy after donation as people who have not donated. For most donors, the remaining kidney works well for the rest of their lives.

Very few donors have very rare, more serious problems after recovery, such as:

  • High blood pressure or diabetes, which are treatable

  • For people who can get pregnant, a small chance of high blood pressure during future pregnancies

  • Kidney failure, and if this happens, the donor will get priority on the kidney transplant waitlist to get a deceased donor kidney

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