Study on eight patients with malignant tumors after renal transplantation

The high incidence of cancer after renal transplantation is now a critical concern since the graft survival rate has been improved extensively. We experienced 9 malignancies in 8 patients out of 168 recipients up to December 31, 1999 in our hospital, consisting of a case of gastric plasmacytoma and cases of cancer in the liver (2), thyroid (2), prostate (1), breast (1), sigmoid colon (1) and gall-bladder (1). Two patients were diagnosed as having tumors within 3 months after transplantation, suggesting post-transplant acceleration of growth of the latent tumors. The other patients were diagnosed at an average of 128 months, ranging from 84 to 263 months after transplant. Two patients died of gastro-intestinal bleeding and acute heart failure. Four patients died directly of progressive neoplasm within 3 months after diagnosis. These results suggest that the course of malignancies developing in post-transplant recipients is more aggressive than that expected in non-transplant patients, and it is very important to intensively follow long-term surviving cases to detect the malignant tumors as early as possible.