The aim of this study was to explore medical reasons of not-donating among 340 individuals, who volunteered to donate a kidney and were evaluated in our centre between 1995 and 2008. Of 340 individuals subjected to qualification procedure, 84 wanted to donate the kidney to one of 71 paediatric recipients. The group of donor candidates was outnumbered by women (178 vs. 154 men) while men predominated among prospect recipients (195 vs. 130 women). Median prospect donor's age was 44 yrs (range 19-70). Only 111 (32.6%) live donor nephrectomies were done, with forty of those kidneys transplanted to paediatric recipients. Two thirds of individuals will never donate (n=229; 67.4%), among those 116 were disqualified in our centre. The reasons of no-donation were medical in 64 subjects (55%). In individual subjects at least one of the mentioned below contraindications was identified: 27 cases of hypertension, 27 of CKD, 10 of obesity, 7 of hyperlipidaemia, 6 cases of heart and 5 of liver disease, and 11 other rare medical problems. Thirty one procedures (27%) had to be cancelled for immunological reasons. In 27 (23%) cases the procedure was cancelled upon psychological reasons, in 14 cases the future recipient and in 3 the donor withdrew their consent. Among 304 analysed prospect recipients, 105 underwent deceased donor kidney transplantation - 38 after disqualification of a living donor and 67 in the course of the qualification procedure.
Conclusions: The number of volunteers willing to donate the kidney significantly exceeds truly performed procedures. Medical problems which were identified during the qualification contributed to early diagnosis and treatment of asymptomatic illnesses in this group.

Keywords: Living Donors