Perioperative management for laparoscopic kidney donation

Aim. To report a single centre's experience in the perioperative management of live kidney laparoscopic donations. Methods. Design: comparative analysis of all laparoscopic kidney donations performed between April 2000 and August 2002 and a corresponding number of "traditional surgery" donors from a historical series. Setting: kidney transplant centre of a teaching hospital. Interventions: 39 and 27 subjects undergoing respectively laparoscopic and traditional "open" kidney donation were studied. A standard balanced anesthesiological technique was used in both groups but, to counterbalance the reported abdominal insufflation-related kidney dysfunction, laparoscopic donors were administered an extra intravascular volume loading with colloids and crystalloids starting from the night before surgery. Results. Laparoscopic donors underwent a longer procedure with a lower estimated blood loss (p=0.0001) and were intraoperatively administered with a higher amount of intravenous fluids (p