Pulmonary malignancies in the immunocompromised patient

Clinicians should be familiar with immunodeficiency-related malignancies, as their incidence is expected to increase further with the rise in the number and survival of immunocompromised patients. The most common malignancies affecting the lungs in those patients are Kaposi's sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and, to a far less extent, Hodgkin's disease and bronchogenic carcinoma. However, their relative frequency depends on the types of immune deficiency, including those due to congenital disorders, AIDS and drug treatments. This review will summarize epidemiological data on the frequency of immmunodeficiency-related malignancies, recent advances on their pathogenesis and current approaches to their diagnosis and treatment in the various immunosuppressed groups.