Survey: Laparoscopic Surgery Gets High Ratings From Kidney Donors

Living kidney donors who have laparoscopic rather than open surgery have significantly less postoperative pain and require less time to return to their normal activities, according to UCLA researchers.

Since this less invasive surgical technique was first used to remove a donor kidney in 1995, the number of laparoscopic donor surgeries has soared and now accounts for the vast majority of kidney donor surgeries at many major medical centers.

Reporting in the Journal of Urology, the researchers said they evaluated pain, convalescence and health-related quality of life in patients undergoing laparoscopic and open mini-incision donor surgery using two questionnaires.

The first questionnaire evaluated postoperative pain, return to functioning time and satisfaction. The second was a health survey quality of life assessment.

"Pain in the laparoscopic group was significantly less than in the mini-incision group at all followup time points," the researchers reported. "Statistically significant differences demonstrated that laparoscopy led to more rapid recovery time in certain categories, including walking, discontinuation of prescribed oral pain relievers, return to driving, and resumption of normal work and home daily activities."

"In addition, the laparoscopic group showed significantly higher quality of life scores than the mini-incision group," the researchers reported.

Other Sources: Yomiuri Shimbun