Living Kidney Donors' Financial Expenses and Mental Health.

BACKGROUND: Living kidney donors incur donation-related expenses, but how these expenses impact postdonation mental health is unknown. METHODS: In this prospective cohort study, the association between mental health and donor-incurred expenses (both out-of-pocket costs and lost wages) was examined in 821 people who donated a kidney at one of the 12 transplant centers in Canada between 2009 and 2014. Mental health was measured by the RAND Short Form-36 Health Survey along with Beck Anxiety Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory. RESULTS: A total of 209 donors (25%) reported expenses of >5500 Canadian dollars. Compared with donors who incurred lower expenses, those who incurred higher expenses demonstrated significantly worse mental health-related quality of life 3 months after donation, with a trend towards worse anxiety and depression, after controlling for predonation mental health-related quality of life and other risk factors for psychological distress. Between-group differences for donors with lower and higher expenses on these measures were no longer significant 12 months after donation. CONCLUSIONS: Living kidney donor transplant programs should ensure that adequate psychosocial support is available to all donors who need it, based on known and unknown risk factors. Efforts to minimize donor-incurred expenses and to better support the mental well-being of donors need to continue. Further research is needed to investigate the effect of donor reimbursement programs, which mitigate donor expenses, on postdonation mental health.

Financial Costs Incurred by Living Kidney Donors: A Prospective Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND: Approximately 40% of the kidneys for transplant worldwide come from living donors. Despite advantages of living donor transplants, rates have stagnated in recent years. One possible barrier may be costs related to the transplant process that potential willing donors may incur for travel, parking, accommodation, and lost productivity. METHODS: To better understand and quantify the financial costs incurred by living kidney donors, we conducted a prospective cohort study, recruiting 912 living kidney donors from 12 transplant centers across Canada between 2009 and 2014; 821 of them completed all or a portion of the costing survey. We report microcosted total, out-of-pocket, and lost productivity costs (in 2016 Canadian dollars) for living kidney donors from donor evaluation start to 3 months after donation. We examined costs according to (1) the donor's relationship with their recipient, including spousal (donation to a partner), emotionally related nonspousal (friend, step-parent, in law), or genetically related; and (2) donation type (directed, paired kidney, or nondirected). RESULTS: Living kidney donors incurred a median (75th percentile) of $1254 ($2589) in out-of-pocket costs and $0 ($1908) in lost productivity costs. On average, total costs were $2226 higher in spousal compared with emotionally related nonspousal donors (P=0.02) and $1664 higher in directed donors compared with nondirected donors (P<0.001). Total costs (out-of-pocket and lost productivity) exceeded $5500 for 205 (25%) donors. CONCLUSIONS: Our results can be used to inform strategies to minimize the financial burden of living donation, which may help improve the donation experience and increase the number of living donor kidney transplants.

Understanding the sex disparity in living kidney donation.

Living donors are the preferred source of organs for kidney transplantation, which is the treatment modality of choice for end-stage kidney disease. Health care systems widely promote living kidney donation. However, women are consistently overrepresented among living donors. The reasons behind the sex-based disparity in living kidney donation remain poorly understood. Compared to women, men possess a greater amount of kidney function, and the higher deceased donation rate among men reflects their higher overall kidney quality. A plausible medical explanation for the sex-based disparity in living kidney donation includes an uncompromising emphasis on preserving donor health, with less emphasis placed on organ quality, which is the main criterion in deceased donor selection. On the other hand, consent to deceased donation is also greater in women, indicating their greater desire to donate even though fewer women actually become deceased donors. Therefore, nonmedical reasons for the sex disparity in living donation must be sought. Increased empathic distress or emotional memory; a greater sense of responsibility, urgency, and impulsiveness with increased reaction to empathy; a different body image; and a different social status may all contribute to greater living kidney donation in women. Economic inequity may be the singular explanation when personal worth links to economic worth. To better understand the sex disparity in living kidney donation, we need better data on the reasons behind both nondonation and donor rejection after evaluation in clinical practice. Nondirected living kidney donation provides unique opportunities to minimize factors such as emotional distress, empathy, and impulsiveness. More liberal acceptance criteria for donors with isolated medical abnormalities and testing legitimate donor reimbursement strategies based on actual income levels rather than a fixed amount can assist in both ascertaining the reasons behind the sex disparity in living kidney donation and increasing overall living kidney donation rates.

Hypertension Canada's 2017 Guidelines for Diagnosis, Risk Assessment, Prevention, and Treatment of Hypertension in Adults.

Hypertension Canada provides annually updated, evidence-based guidelines for the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension. This year, we introduce 10 new guidelines. Three previous guidelines have been revised and 5 have been removed. Previous age and frailty distinctions have been removed as considerations for when to initiate antihypertensive therapy. In the presence of macrovascular target organ damage, or in those with independent cardiovascular risk factors, antihypertensive therapy should be considered for all individuals with elevated average systolic nonautomated office blood pressure (non-AOBP) readings ≥ 140 mm Hg. For individuals with diastolic hypertension (with or without systolic hypertension), fixed-dose single-pill combinations are now recommended as an initial treatment option. Preference is given to pills containing an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker in combination with either a calcium channel blocker or diuretic. Whenever a diuretic is selected as monotherapy, longer-acting agents are preferred. In patients with established ischemic heart disease, caution should be exercised in lowering diastolic non-AOBP to ≤ 60 mm Hg, especially in the presence of left ventricular hypertrophy. After a hemorrhagic stroke, in the first 24 hours, systolic non-AOBP lowering to < 140 mm Hg is not recommended. Finally, guidance is now provided for screening, initial diagnosis, assessment, and treatment of renovascular hypertension arising from fibromuscular dysplasia. The specific evidence and rationale underlying each of these guidelines are discussed.

Hypertension Canada's 2016 Canadian Hypertension Education Program Guidelines for Blood Pressure Measurement, Diagnosis, Assessment of Risk, Prevention, and Treatment of Hypertension.

Hypertension Canada's Canadian Hypertension Education Program Guidelines Task Force provides annually updated, evidence-based recommendations to guide the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension. This year, we present 4 new recommendations, as well as revisions to 2 previous recommendations. In the diagnosis and assessment of hypertension, automated office blood pressure, taken without patient-health provider interaction, is now recommended as the preferred method of measuring in-office blood pressure. Also, although a serum lipid panel remains part of the routine laboratory testing for patients with hypertension, fasting and nonfasting collections are now considered acceptable. For individuals with secondary hypertension arising from primary hyperaldosteronism, adrenal vein sampling is recommended for those who are candidates for potential adrenalectomy. With respect to the treatment of hypertension, a new recommendation that has been added is for increasing dietary potassium to reduce blood pressure in those who are not at high risk for hyperkalemia. Furthermore, in selected high-risk patients, intensive blood pressure reduction to a target systolic blood pressure ≤ 120 mm Hg should be considered to decrease the risk of cardiovascular events. Finally, in hypertensive individuals with uncomplicated, stable angina pectoris, either a ß-blocker or calcium channel blocker may be considered for initial therapy. The specific evidence and rationale underlying each of these recommendations are discussed. Hypertension Canada's Canadian Hypertension Education Program Guidelines Task Force will continue to provide annual updates.

Commercial kidney transplantation is an important risk factor in long-term kidney allograft survival.

Transplant tourism, a form of transplant commercialization, has resulted in serious short-term adverse outcomes that explain reduced short-term kidney allograft survival. However, the nature of longer-term outcomes in commercial kidney transplant recipients is less clear. To study this further, we identified 69 Canadian commercial transplant recipients of 72 kidney allografts transplanted during 1998 to 2013 who reported to our transplant center for follow-up care. Their outcomes to 8 years post-transplant were compared with 702 domestic living donor and 827 deceased donor transplant recipients during this period using Kaplan-Meier survival plots and multivariate Cox regression analysis. Among many complications, notable specific events included hepatitis B or C seroconversion (7 patients), active hepatitis and/or fulminant hepatic failure (4 patients), pulmonary tuberculosis (2 patients), and a type A dissecting aortic aneurysm. Commercial transplantation was independently associated with significantly reduced death-censored kidney allograft survival (hazard ratio 3.69, 95% confidence interval 1.88-7.25) along with significantly delayed graft function and eGFR 30 ml/min/1.73 m(2) or less at 3 months post-transplant. Thus, commercial transplantation represents an important risk factor for long-term kidney allograft loss. Concerted arguments and efforts using adverse recipient outcomes among the main premises are still required in order to eradicate transplant commercialization.

A moral dilemma argument against clinical trials of incentives for kidney donation.

Commercial transplant tourism results in significant harm to both kidney donors and recipients. However, proponents of incentives for kidney donation assert that proper oversight of the process prevents these harms and also that transplant numbers can be safely increased so that the moral burden of poor end-stage kidney disease outcomes can be alleviated. In a moral dilemma analysis, the principle of preventing donor harm can be dissociated from the principles of providing benefits to the recipient and to society. It is plausible that an incentivized donor is fundamentally different from an uncompensated donor. Incentivized donors can experience harms unrelated to lack of regulation because their characteristics are determined by the incentive superimposed upon a poverty circumstance. Moreover, creating a system of incentivized donation without established national registries for capturing all long-term donor outcomes would be morally inconsistent, since without prior demonstration that donor outcomes are not income or wealth-dependent, a population of incentivized donors cannot be morally created in a clinical trial. Socioeconomic factors adversely affect outcome in other surgical populations, and interventions on income or wealth in these populations have not been studied. Coercion will be increased in families not affected by kidney disease, where knowledge of a new income source and not of a potential recipient is the incentive. In the case of elective surgery such as kidney donation, donor non-maleficence trumps donor autonomy, recipient beneficence, and beneficence to society when there is a conflict among these principles. Yet, we are still faced with the total moral burden of end-stage kidney disease, which belongs to the society that cannot provide enough donor kidneys. Acting according to one arm of the dilemma to prevent donor harm does not erase obligations towards the other, to provide recipient benefit. To resolve the moral burden, as moral agents, we must rearrange our institutions by increasing available donor organs from other sources. The shortage of donor kidneys creates a moral burden for society, but incentives for donation will only increase the total moral burden of end-stage kidney disease.

The 2014 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations for blood pressure measurement, diagnosis, assessment of risk, prevention, and treatment of hypertension.

Herein, updated evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in Canadian adults are detailed. For 2014, 3 existing recommendations were modified and 2 new recommendations were added. The following recommendations were modified: (1) the recommended sodium intake threshold was changed from ≤ 1500 mg (3.75 g of salt) to approximately 2000 mg (5 g of salt) per day; (2) a pharmacotherapy treatment initiation systolic blood pressure threshold of ≥ 160 mm Hg was added in very elderly (age ≥ 80 years) patients who do not have diabetes or target organ damage (systolic blood pressure target in this population remains at < 150 mm Hg); and (3) the target population recommended to receive low-dose acetylsalicylic acid therapy for primary prevention was narrowed from all patients with controlled hypertension to only those ≥ 50 years of age. The 2 new recommendations are: (1) advice to be cautious when lowering systolic blood pressure to target levels in patients with established coronary artery disease if diastolic blood pressure is ≤ 60 mm Hg because of concerns that myocardial ischemia might be exacerbated; and (2) the addition of glycated hemoglobin (A1c) in the diagnostic work-up of patients with newly diagnosed hypertension. The rationale for these recommendation changes is discussed. In addition, emerging data on blood pressure targets in stroke patients are discussed; these data did not lead to recommendation changes at this time. The Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations will continue to be updated annually.

The 2013 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations for blood pressure measurement, diagnosis, assessment of risk, prevention, and treatment of hypertension.

We updated the evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in adults for 2013. This year's update includes 2 new recommendations. First, among nonhypertensive or stage 1 hypertensive individuals, the use of resistance or weight training exercise does not adversely influence blood pressure (BP) (Grade D). Thus, such patients need not avoid this type of exercise for fear of increasing BP. Second, and separately, for very elderly patients with isolated systolic hypertension (age 80 years or older), the target for systolic BP should be < 150 mm Hg (Grade C) rather than < 140 mm Hg as recommended for younger patients. We also discuss 2 additional topics at length (the pharmacological treatment of mild hypertension and the possibility of a diastolic J curve in hypertensive patients with coronary artery disease). In light of several methodological limitations, a recent systematic review of 4 trials in patients with stage 1 uncomplicated hypertension did not lead to changes in management recommendations. In addition, because of a lack of prospective randomized data assessing diastolic BP thresholds in patients with coronary artery disease and hypertension, no recommendation to set a selective diastolic cut point for such patients could be affirmed. However, both of these issues will be examined on an ongoing basis, in particular as new evidence emerges.

The 2012 Canadian hypertension education program recommendations for the management of hypertension: blood pressure measurement, diagnosis, assessment of risk, and therapy.

We updated the evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in adults for 2012. The new recommendations are: (1) use of home blood pressure monitoring to confirm a diagnosis of white coat syndrome; (2) mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists may be used in selected patients with hypertension and systolic heart failure; (3) a history of atrial fibrillation in patients with hypertension should not be a factor in deciding to prescribe an angiotensin-receptor blocker for the treatment of hypertension; and (4) the blood pressure target for patients with nondiabetic chronic kidney disease has now been changed to < 140/90 mm Hg from < 130/80 mm Hg. We also reviewed the recent evidence on blood pressure targets for patients with hypertension and diabetes and continue to recommend a blood pressure target of less than 130/80 mm Hg.

The 2011 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations for the management of hypertension: blood pressure measurement, diagnosis, assessment of risk, and therapy.

We updated the evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis, assessment, prevention, and treatment of hypertension in adults for 2011. The major guideline changes this year are: (1) a recommendation was made for using comparative risk analogies when communicating a patient's cardiovascular risk; (2) diagnostic testing issues for renal artery stenosis were discussed; (3) recommendations were added for the management of hypertension during the acute phase of stroke; (4) people with hypertension and diabetes are now considered high risk for cardiovascular events if they have elevated urinary albumin excretion, overt kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, or the presence of other cardiovascular risk factors; (5) the combination of an angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor and a dihydropyridine calcium channel blocker (CCB) is preferred over the combination of an ACE inhibitor and a thiazide diuretic in persons with diabetes and hypertension; and (6) a recommendation was made to coordinate with pharmacists to improve antihypertensive medication adherence. We also discussed the recent analyses that examined the association between angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) and cancer.

The 2010 Canadian Hypertension Education Program recommendations for the management of hypertension: part I - blood pressure measurement, diagnosis and assessment of risk.

OBJECTIVE: To provide updated, evidence-based recommendations for the diagnosis and assessment of adults with hypertension. EVIDENCE: MEDLINE searches were conducted from November 2008 to October 2009 with the aid of a medical librarian. Reference lists were scanned, experts were contacted, and the personal files of authors and subgroup members were used to identify additional studies. Content and methodological experts assessed studies using prespecified, standardized evidence-based algorithms. Recommendations were based on evidence from peer-reviewed full-text articles only. RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendations for blood pressure measurement, criteria for hypertension diagnosis and follow-up, assessment of global cardiovascular risk, diagnostic testing, diagnosis of renovascular and endocrine causes of hypertension, home and ambulatory monitoring, and the use of echocardiography in hypertensive individuals are outlined. Changes to the recommendations for 2010 relate to automated office blood pressure measurements. Automated office blood pressure measurements can be used in the assessment of office blood pressure. When used under proper conditions, an automated office systolic blood pressure of 135 mmHg or higher or diastolic blood pressure of 85 mmHg or higher should be considered analogous to a mean awake ambulatory systolic blood pressure of 135 mmHg or higher and diastolic blood pressure of 85 mmHg or higher, respectively. VALIDATION: All recommendations were graded according to strength of the evidence and voted on by the 63 members of the Canadian Hypertension Education Program Evidence-Based Recommendations Task Force. To be approved, all recommendations were required to be supported by at least 70% of task force members. These guidelines will continue to be updated annually.

Renal transplant recipient attitudes toward steroid use and steroid withdrawal.

Although steroid avoidance and withdrawal in renal transplant recipients (RTR) are actively being evaluated by physicians, the attitudes of recipients toward steroid use have not been systematically studied in the modern era. We conducted a confidential written survey of single-organ adult RTR pertaining to prednisone-related side-effects. Recipients were asked which drug they felt maximized graft life, which drug they wished to avoid if graft life was unaffected, and which drug they had most compliant with. They also rated 16 common immunosuppressive-related side-effects on a Likert scale with 1 meaning complete disagreement and 10 complete agreement with their own prednisone-attributed experience. A comparison of responses based on RTR demographic characteristics was made by ANOVA or chi-square analysis with Bonferroni correction. The questionnaire was completed by 223 recipients, of whom 93% were primary recipients, 57% were cadaveric organ recipients, and 69% were white people, 7% black people, and 23% Asian people. Age at transplant, age at survey and time since transplant were 41.5 +/- 11, 47.5 +/- 11 and 6.0 +/- 5 yr, respectively. For the entire group, overall side-effect profile for prednisone was rated as 6.1 +/- 3 on the Likert scale, while efficacy was rated as 7.3 +/- 3. If offered monotherapy, 67% preferred a calcineurin-inhibitor (CI), 23% mycophenolate mofetil (MMF)/azathioprine (AZA), and 10% prednisone. When asked which drug they would like to discontinue, 19% chose CI, 16% MMF/AZA, and 65% prednisone. Most recipients felt that CI was the most efficacious drug (80%), followed by MMF/AZA (12%), and prednisone (8%). The side-effects reported as most common were unacceptable weight gain (5.8 +/- 3) and bone/joint disease (5.3 +/- 3). The least common side-effects were blood disorders (2.2 +/- 2) and cancer (2.3 +/- 2). Black people were more likely than non-black people to report developing diabetes (p = 0.02), blood disorders (p = 0.003) and headaches (p = 0.003) as a result of prednisone use. Males reported more liver damage (p = 0.01) while females reported more body fat (p = 0.01) and fluid retention (p = 0.006). RTR >5 yr post-transplant reported more infections (p = 0.008), skin/hair problems (p = 0.02), gastrointestinal irritation (p = 0.02), and bone disease (p = 0.02) compared with RTR <1 yr. Donor source and recipient age did not determine any responses. If given a 'risk-free' choice, the majority of recipients prefer withdrawal of steroids over other agents. Demographic data may be used to predict prednisone-related side-effects and guide steroid use in this population. Study designs related to steroid withdrawal should account for patient preferences in this context.