• Organ Transplant Recipients are at high risk for developing skin cancer.
• Transplant patient's risk for skin cancer increases each year following transplantation.
• Skin cancer in transplant patients can be life threatening and affect quality of life.
  

Information about Skin Cancer in Organ Transplant Recipients for Health Professionals

• General information about Organ Transplantation
• High Incidence of Skin Cancer in Organ Transplant Patients
• Muitiple Skin Cancers can occur simultaneously
• Risk Factors

General information about Organ Transplantation:

>140,000 persons living in the US have solid-organ transplants
> 25,000 transplants are performed in the US annually

Table 1: Transplantation rates by organ in the United States in 2003

High Incidence of Skin Cancer in Organ Transplant Patients

• Most common malignancy in the setting of solid-organ transplantation and immunosuppression
• Incidence of skin cancer is substantially increased with extended survival after organ transplant
• NMSC accounts for 90% of all skin cancers in transplant patients
• NMSC rate > 100x that of the general populations(1)

Table 2: Population-based standardized incidence ratios of skin cancer in organ transplant patients(2)

Incidence of other NMSC are also increased

• Merkel cell carcinoma
• Eccrine carcinoma
• Atypical fibroxanthoma (AFX)
• Malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH)
• Angiosarcoma
• Cutaneous lymphoma
  

Muitiple Skin Cancers can occur simultaneously:

• Once a transplant patient develops a single NMSC
  • 25% will develop another NMSC within 13 months
  • 50% will develop additional skin cancer within 3.5yrs
• As many as 12% of transplant patients may develop > 5 NMSC/year(3)

Risk Factors

Table 3: Risk factors for development of skin cancer post-transplantation