An American study shows that people who have benefited from an organ donation are more at risk of developing cancer. In question: anti-rejection drugs, but also the underlying medical conditions.
- Because of their immunosuppressive treatment, people who have been transplanted are more at risk of developing cancer and lose an average of 2.7 years of life expectancy.
- People who have had a lung or heart transplant are most at risk of developing cancer in the ten years following their operation.
In transplant recipients, taking immunosuppressive drugs is essential to ensure the success of organ donation. The purpose of this treatment is to limit the action of the immune system, and therefore to prevent the recipient’s body from rejecting the graft, which the body considers to be a foreign body.
But immunosuppressants are lifelong medications, which can have significant effects on patients’ health and affect their life expectancy. A new study published in the journal Cancer shows that transplant recipients are more at risk of developing cancer.
3 years of life lost on average in transplant recipients
For the study, the researchers looked at data from organ transplant and cancer registries in the United States from 1987 to 2014, with information for all ages and all organs. The team quantified the years of life lost due to cancer. That is, they estimated how much the average lifespan is shortened by cancer among transplant recipients.
In total, they looked at data from 221,962 transplant recipients. Of these, 13,074 (5.9%) developed cancer within 10 years of transplantation. During this 10-year post-transplant period, recipients who developed cancer lost an average of 2.7 years of life due to their cancer diagnosis. In total, cancer was responsible for 11% of all years of life lost from all causes.
The researchers also looked at the type of cancer involved in these years of life lost. It turns out that lung cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma had the biggest impact, each leading to a reduction in lifespan of about five years. Lung recipients lost the most years of life to cancer, followed by heart recipients. In addition, the years of life lost due to cancer increased with age.
For Dr Anne-Michelle Noone, of the National Cancer Institute, who led the work, these results underline the need to better prevent and detect cancer in transplant recipients, and pay particular attention to those most at risk.
“For example, there may be opportunities for screening for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, particularly in groups at high risk for this cancer, such as children. Similarly, healthcare providers should consider screening for lung cancer in older transplant recipients with a history of smoking, as recommended for people who smoke in the general population”she recommends.
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