De novo cancers arising in organ transplant recipients are associated with adverse outcomes compared with the general population.
BACKGROUND
Transplant recipients are at increased risk of malignancy; however, the influence of transplantation on cancer outcomes has not been rigorously defined. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of transplantation on the outcomes of individual cancers.


METHODS
De novo nonsmall cell lung cancer, colon cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, bladder cancer, renal cell cancer (RCC), and malignant melanoma data in 635 adult (>18 years of age) transplant recipients (from the Israel Penn International Transplant Tumor Registry) were compared with data from 1,282,984 adults in the general population (from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database).


RESULTS
Compared with the general population, transplant patients were more likely to have early stage (AJCC stage 0-II) RCC, but more advanced (AJCC stage >II) colon cancer, breast cancer, bladder cancer, and malignant melanoma. Compared with the general population, disease-specific survival was worse in the transplant population for colon cancer (all stages), nonsmall cell lung cancer (stage II), breast cancer (stage III), prostate cancer (stage II, III, and IV), bladder cancer (stage III), and RCC (stage IV). Multivariate analyses demonstrated transplantation to be a negative risk factor for survival for each cancer studied, and transplantation and cancer stage at diagnosis to be the most profound negative survival predictors.


CONCLUSIONS
These analyses indicate that, for several common cancers, transplant patients experience worse outcomes than the general population. The data also suggest that cancers in transplant recipients are more aggressive biologically at the time of diagnosis.
Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, OH 45267-0558, USA.
Yun
Y
Miao
Jason J
JJ
Everly
Thomas G
TG
Gross
Amit D
AD
Tevar
M Roy
MR
First
Rita R
RR
Alloway
E Steve
ES
Woodle
D000328:Adult; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008175:Lung Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology; D016377:Organ Transplantation / Q000009:adverse effects*; D018579:Patient Selection; D012042:Registries; D016019:Survival Analysis; D017741:Survivors; D013736:Testicular Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000473:pathology; D055815:Young Adult