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One in five kidney transplant recipients will develop skin cancer as a long-term side effect of their treatment.
That’s the reality I’m grappling with every day as a researcher.
I began to notice just how significant of an issue skin cancer was for kidney transplant recipients during my fellowship training in dermatology. Time and time again, patients walked through the doors with recurring skin cancer. Time and time again, we would remove the cancer and send them on their way... knowing they’d likely return within a matter of months.
One of the patients I saw frequently during my early days as a doctor was a younger woman in her twenties named Jessica*. She was reserved and calm, seemingly quite mature for her age. But she never came to her appointments without a teddy bear in her hands. She’d clutch the ratty little bear as we assessed the latest cancerous growths, determining her treatment plan. Jessica had skin cancer all over her body—including her face. It was obvious that being there was hard for her even though she always tried to remain positive in our conversations.
She was one of the many kidney patients who experienced recurring skin cancer as a side effect of the anti-rejection medications transplants require. When you undergo a transplant, there’s always a risk your body won’t accept the donor organ. Anti-rejection medications are therefore given to suppress the immune system and maximize the odds of the transplant being a success. But when you suppress the immune system in this way, you leave the body vulnerable to other types of infection and disease.
In the case of kidney transplant recipients, skin cancer is by far the most common cancer to develop. In fact, skin cancer is 10 times more common in people with transplants than people without. I don’t feel good about those numbers. I’m sure you don’t either. That’s why I decided to focus my research career on risk factors associated with the development of skin cancer in kidney transplant recipients, and on identifying ways to reduce that risk.
No transplant recipient should have to fear they’ll develop cancer on top of the kidney disease they’re already grappling with.
Thank you for investing in a better future for kidney patients.
Sincerely,
Dr. An-Wen Chan
Clinical Epidemiologist and Kidney Disease Researcher
*Name changed for privacy
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