Chronic Inguinal Pain after Living Kidney Donation.

M. Zorgdrager, M. van Londen, L.B. Westenberg, G.J. Nieuwenhuijs, S.H. Hofker, M.H. de Borst, J.F.M. Lange, S.J.L. Bakker, H.G.D. Leuvenink, R.A. Pol

Thursday 15 march 2018

15:15 - 15:20h at Willem Burger Foyer

Categories: Donation, Session (poster)

Parallel session: Poster session 5: Donation

Background

To study the etiology of chronic pain after living kidney donation, assessment of chronic pain after laparoscopic donor nephrectomy with validated scoring systems is necessary. Up to this date, a validated approach and studies on chronic pain are lacking.

Aim

The purpose of this study is to assess the incidence of chronic pain after hand-assisted laparoscopic donor nephrectomy using a validated questionnaire.

Methods

We included 333 living kidney donors who donated their kidney between 2011-2017 in a Dutch transplant center. We used the Carolinas Comfort Scale (CCS) and the Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) to assess post-donation chronic pain and movement disabilities. We report the prevalence and severity of pain and the need for analgesics. Normally distributed variables are reported as mean±standard deviation and non-normally distributed are reported as median [25^th;75^th percentile]. Mann-Whitney U tests and Chi-square tests were used to test differences in donors with or without pain.

Results

The median age of the included donors was 57 years old, 162 (48.6%) were male and the median follow-up duration was 19 [10-33] months. Eighty-two (24.6%) donors had a CCS >0, of which 57 (17.2%) also reported movement limitations. One-hundred-and-ten (33.1%) had a VAS score >0. In 230 donors with follow-up >1 year post-donation, 47 (20.4%) had a CCS >0, 34 (14.8%) had movement limitations and 67 (29.3%) had a VAS score >0. Donors with pain had most complaints with bending over (12.3%) and exercising (12.0%). Thirty-two (9.7%) donors required analgesics during follow-up. Compared with donors without pain, donors with pain were younger (54 vs. 58 years old, p=0.009). Of donors with a CCS >0, 6% specifically reported chronic inguinal pain.

Conclusions

In this study, we show that 20% of donors experience chronic post-donation pain, of which 6% report inguinal complaints. Complaints occur during bending over and exercising and required analgesic in a minority of cases. These data can be used to raise awareness and develop individualized interventions for pain reduction in living kidney donors.