Occurrence of cancers in immunosuppressed organ transplant recipients.

The findings in this study emphasize the need for lifetime follow-up of organ transplant recipients. Currently, approximately 6% of organ transplant recipients have developed neoplasms and 1% have died of their tumors. Most deaths have been from high-grade carcinomas of various organs or from NHLs. Fortunately, a high percentage of posttransplant tumors are low-grade malignancies that are readily amenable to treatment. The future holds promise. Attempts are being made to modify the present blunderbuss attack on the immune system with more specific methods of control of certain of its components. Much work is currently being done to induce states of immune unresponsiveness directed specifically, and only, at the foreign antigens of the allograft. Hopefully these efforts will eliminate the need for long-term or intense immunosuppressive therapy and the problem of posttransplant malignancies will be relegated to a footnote in the history of organ transplantation.