Psychiatric problems in living-related transplantation (III): pretransplant psychological assessment in living-related transplantation

Abstract

ECAUSE of rapid advances in surgical techniques and in the management of infection and rejection, the number of organ transplants has been increasing. Adult-toadult living-related liver transplantation (LRLT) has been necessary in Japan because organ donation from cadaveric donors is rare, even though the Diet (legislature) approved the procedure in 1998. In the United States, cadaveric organs have provided a source for liver transplantation, but the number of donations from brain-dead donors is insufficient to meet demand. Although they are infrequently verbalized in Japanese culture, psychological conflicts are evident among donors. In our previous studies, we reported abnormal findings in a projective drawing test administered to the recipients and donors immediately prior to living-related kidney transplantation (LRKT). 1‐3 These abnormalities were associated with clinical expressions of anxiety. There is, as yet, no predictive data (of which we are aware) on the relationship between preoperative projective testing and the incidence of psychiatric symptoms after living-related transplantation. In the present study we performed pretransplant psychological assessment in living-related transplantation.