Re: Living or deceased donor: what families expect from transplantation in older adults

Dear Editor,

Further to my earlier response, I would add one point. A kidney from a living-related donor has minimal ischaemia time and generally does better than a deceased-donor kidney. Yet for a frail elderly recipient, even in the best centres, this may add only a few months of survival. That gain is not worth the lifelong risk to a healthy relative.

Many families believe that a transplant will return their elderly relative to a fully normal life. This is mostly true for younger patients, but the situation of the elderly is different. Counselling families about realistic outcomes is an essential part of assessing older patients for transplantation.

Language editing of this response was assisted by an AI tool; the content and opinions are the author's own.