title: Cancer in patients receiving dialysis.
abstract: The incidence of cancer and related mortality was studied in 1651 patients from six dialysis centres in England over 10 years. The only type of cancer for which there was a significant excess was non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (four cases observed against an expected incidence of 0.15 (p < 0.001); three deaths against an expected 0.1 (p < 0.001)). This excess could not be attributed to either subsequent transplantation or treatment with immunosuppressive drugs. Since immunodepression is a feature of chronic renal failure, these observations together with those on patints treated with immunosuppressive drugs suggest that immunosuppression favours the development of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Studies in which it is concluded that patients receiving dialysis show an excess of other types of cancer have certain shortcomings; the unusual opportunities for detecting cancer in such patients may account for some of the reported excess.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007165:Immunosuppression Therapy; D008223:Lymphoma / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology* / Q000401:mortality; D010530:Peritoneal Dialysis; D006435:Renal Dialysis; D006113:United Kingdom