Advanced donor-origin melanoma in a renal transplant recipient: immunotherapy, cure, and retransplantation

A kidney transplant recipient inadvertently contracted donor-origin melanoma, which was found to be very advanced at presentation. Withdrawal of immunosuppression failed to induce rejection, and interferon-alpha was required. When florid allograft rejection was in progress, the allograft was removed, before it was recognized that the transplanted melanoma was not being simultaneously rejected.

Subsequent immunotherapy was required, which largely recapitulated treatment of recognized value in autologous melanoma and included interferon-alpha, use of cultured melanoma cells as tumor vaccine, pooled allogeneic cell vaccination, and adoptive immunotherapy using lymphokine-activated killer cells.

Prolonged immunotherapy eradicated the widespread malignancy, and the patient went on to a successful second renal transplant, with follow-up of over 24 months.

This unique case demonstrates the successful cure of advanced transplanted melanoma through the use of immunotherapy, which did not require sophisticated tumor vaccine technology, and successful retransplantation.