The altruistic act of giving up a kidney so another person may live does not put the donor's health in jeopardy, a landmark study has demonstrated.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore looked at the long-term health of more than 80,000 live-kidney donors in the United States.
The results, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that the procedure carries very little medical risk. People who donated one of their kidneys generally live just as long as people who have two functioning kidneys.
"Donating a kidney is safe," declared Dorry Segev, one of the authors of the study.