Dietary intake in Japanese patients with kidney transplantation.

BACKGROUND: Kidney transplantation may release the patient receiving dialysis therapy in their life style, especially in restriction of dietary intake. However, their renal functions are not enough to take daily diet without any restriction. In Japan, we have neither standard of diet intake for them, nor data to build it. METHODS: Dietary intake and its satisfaction were surveyed in 62 outpatients who received kidney transplantation in Keio University Hospital using brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire. RESULTS: Cross-sectional research was carried out in 2013. Estimated GFR of the object was 42 ± 16 ml/min/1.73 m2. One patient was CKD G1 stage, five in G2, 17 in G3a, 24 in G3b, 14 in G4, and one in G5. Urinary protein was shown in 30 % of patients. Their daily intake was 29 ± 8 kcal/kg of energy, 1.1 ± 0.4 g/kg of protein, 9.9 ± 3.6 g of salt. Protein and salt intakes were over comparing the respective standards for CKD in Japan. The patient who have dissatisfaction for their daily diet was significantly decreased from 79 to 4 % after their kidney transplantation. Attentions to overtake were significantly reduced after kidney transplantation from 56 to 8 % for potassium, 55 to 21 % for salt, 50 to 16 % for protein, 35 to 3 % for calcium/phosphate. CONCLUSIONS: Changes in daily diet of the patients with dialysis and kidney transplantation were recognized. The patients who received kidney transplantation would take daily diet according to their renal function although they do not have specific standards.

Discrepancy in Psychological Attitudes Toward Living Donor Liver Transplantation Between Recipients and Donors.

BACKGROUND: Mutual understanding between recipients and donors is indispensable when living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is performed, which, however, has gained little attention and remains unaddressed in the literature. METHODS: Fifty-seven pairs, a recipient (mean ± SD age at the operation, 48.3 ± 10.6 years; mean ± SD years after the operation, 6.2 ± 4.7 years) and his or her donor, who underwent LDLT completed a 13-item questionnaire on a 7-point Likert scale (1: strongly agree to 7: strongly disagree) that was designed to assess for their psychological attitudes toward transplantation. They were also asked to estimate their donor's or recipient's response to the questionnaire, respectively. Values of interest were compared between groups, using paired t tests. Following Bonferroni correction, a P value less than 0.0038 (0.05/13) was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Significant differences were observed between actually answered and estimated responses in 7 of the 13 items in the questionnaire for donors. For example, donors did not feel pressure to become a donor to the same degree as their recipients estimated (4.6 ± 1.9 vs 3.4 ± 1.8). In contrast, only 1 item showed a significant difference between actually answered and estimated responses in the questionnaire for recipients; recipients did not worry about the transplanted liver compared to their donors' estimation (3.1 ± 1.9 vs 2.1 ± 0.8). CONCLUSIONS: Recipients did not fully understand the donors' feelings toward LDLT, whereas donors almost correctly understood their recipients' attitudes. Our findings clearly revealed the gap in their mutual understanding and emphasize the need of psychological education to bridge the gap.