Cancer Risk Increases After Kidney Transplant

(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Patients who receive a kidney transplant are at an increased risk for three types of cancer, according to a new study. Study authors suggest this risk could be associated with immune suppression because some of the cancers have been associated with viruses.

For this study, researchers from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, looked at more than 28,000 patients with end-stage kidney disease who received a kidney transplant. Study authors compared cancer incidence before the transplant, during dialysis and after transplantation.

Researchers report organ transplantation was associated with an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and Kaposi's sarcoma -- a cancer that develops in connective tissues like cartilage, bone, fat, muscle, and blood vessels. The risk was slightly increased during dialysis and before transplantation, but the increase was three-fold after renal (kidney) replacement therapy (RRT).

Transplants could put patients at risk for other cancers as well, report the researchers. More studies need to be done to know for sure.

Study authors write, "Although the incidence of some cancers was increased during dialysis and the incidence of a few was increased before RRT, the magnitude and breadth of the increased risk after transplantation suggests that immune suppression causes a substantial and broad-ranging increase in cancer risk."

SOURCE: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2006;296:2823-2831