Increased risk of cancer becomes 'side effects' for organ transplant

Millions of lives could be saved thanks to organ transplant technology. Even so, the success of organ transplantation is often accompanied by undesirable side effects that increase cancer risk by 2-fold. A recent study at the National Cancer Institute showed an increased risk of cancer can be 2-fold in transplant kidneys, liver, and lungs.

Results were published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In that study, the scientists under the coordination of Dr. Eric A Engels studied 176 000 patients undergoing organ transplants between the years 1987-2008. During the observations, Dr. Engels and her colleagues found 11,000 patients with cancer.

Transplant recipients were seven times more likely to have Non-Hodgkin lymphoma - a cancer related to immune suppression and Epstein-Barr infection.Other cancers shown to be at an elevated risk were lung, kidney, and liver - most often in recipients of those organs.

In 2010 alone, there were nearly 29,000 organ transplants in the U.S., including 17,000 kidney transplants.

"Suppressing the immune system does increase the risk of cancer," Dr. Darla Granger, director of pancreatic transplantation at St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit, told HealthDay. "And, if you have cancer, you want a strong immune system to fight the cancer," She called that a catch-22.

Can anything be done? The authors said more research needs to be pinpoint what's going wrong.

"We wish to understand how medical conditions and individual immunosuppressive medications may contribute to cancer risk," Engels said. "Clearer understanding of the pattern of cancer risk associated with solid organ transplantation may help future patients have better, healthier outcomes."