DONORS Quality of Life of Living Donors Before and After Living Donor Liver Transplantation M. Walter, G. Dammann, C. Papachristou, A. Pascher, P. Neuhaus, G. Danzer, and B.F. Klapp ABSTRACT Living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) is becoming an established method for treatment of terminal liver disease in adults. After resection of the right hepatic lobe, postoperative complications can arise in healthy donors, and even individual cases of death have been recorded. There remains, however, little research on the psychosocial aspects in living donors before and after LDLT. Using the WHOQOL questionnaire, this prospective study investigates the quality of life (QoL) in a sample of 28 living donors, including the relationship between postoperative complications and QoL before and 6 months after donation. Before LDLT, the donor QoL is high, above that of the general healthy population. After LDLT, a significant reduction in the QoL appears in the areas of “physical health” and “living conditions.” Nevertheless, the QoL remains above the level of the general population. Only two donors showed general QoL values below those of the general population. The postoperative complications had no significant influence on the QoL after transplantation. The high QoL of donors following LDLT indicates a positive psychosocial outcome for the majority of donors, irrespective of donation-related compli- cations. Additional psychosocial studies will be necessary to disclose predictors for an unfavorable psychosocial outcome following LDLT. A DULT RIGHT HEPATIC living donor liver trans- plantation (LDLT) has gained widespread accep- tance as an effective procedure for patients with terminal liver diseases. The disadvantage of LDLT is the risk of complications or death in an healthy donor. 1 Furthermore, there is little research available on the psychosocial out- come of donors after LDLT. 2,3 The present study looks into changes of donor-related quality of life (QoL) and the relationships between postoperative complications and QoL in the first half year following LDLT. PATIENTS AND METHODS Donors From August 2000 to January 2002, 30 living donor liver transplan- tations were performed at the Charite ´ in Berlin. The sample consisted of 16 women (53.3%) and 14 men (46.6%); the average age was 41 years old. In 27 donors, resection of the right hepatic lobe was performed, and in three others, the left lateral liver segment was resected. Both before and 6 months after LDLT our outpatient psychosomatics unit conducted evaluative interviews and psychologi- cal tests with the donors. Two donors were excluded from the From the Psychiatric University Clinic (M.W., G.D.), Basel, Switzerland, and Clinic for Abdominal and General Surgery (A.P., P.N.) and Clinic for Internal Medicine—Psychosomatics (M.W., C.P., G.D.), Charite ´ , Campus Mitte, Humboldt-University, Berlin, Germany. Address reprint requests to Marc Walter, Psychiatric Univer- sity Clinic, Willhelm Klein-Strasse 27, CH-4025 Basel, Switzer- land. E-mail: marc.walter@pukbasel.ch © 2003 by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 0041-1345/03/$–see front matter 360 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10010-1710 doi:10.1016/j.transproceed.2003.10.048 Transplantation Proceedings, 35, 2961-2963 (2003) 2961