NIH Radio
NIH study finds broad spectrum of cancer risk for organ transplant recipients in US
Brief Description:
Organ transplant recipients in the United States have a high risk of developing 32 different types of cancer.
Transcript:
Akinso: According to an NIH, study, organ transplant recipients in the US have a high risk of developing cancer.
Engels: We looked at about 50 different cancers in the study. And we found that transplant recipients had an increase risk for 32 types of cancer.
Akinso: NIH researcher Dr. Eric A. Engels is the lead author of the study.
Engels: There were 175,000 transplant recipients included in this study. We were able to include that many people because we collected data from large national and state data bases called registries.
Akinso: In 2010, over 28,000 transplants were performed in the US. Dr. Engels explains why transplant recipients may be at a high risk of developing cancer.
Engels: The major reason why transplant recipients have an increase risk of cancer is because their immune system is weakened.
Akinso: It has been well documented that transplant recipients are at a higher risk for developing cancer than the general population. But past studies of cancer risk in transplant recipients focused mainly on those who received kidney transplants, and other studies were too small to accurately estimate risk for all but the most common cancer types. Dr. Engels says this current study is much larger than prior studies.
Engels: And we included a very representative sample of the U.S. transplant population. So we had recipients of all of the major types of transplant organs, whereas some of the previous studies only included kidney recipients. So our study was larger and more representative and we can get a better picture of the cancer risk.
Akinso: Researchers carried out additional analyses on four cancers based on known risk and their new study.
Engels: The most common of these was non-Hodgkin lymphoma which is a cancer of the immune system. We saw an increase risk of lung cancer. We're not exactly sure why all those lung cancers are developing. A big part of that is smoking and the risk was most common among lung recipients who have damage lungs. We saw an increase risk of liver cancer that was really restricted to liver recipients. And we think part of the risk is related to hepatitis virus infections particularly hepatitis C. And then finally we saw an increase risk of kidney cancer.
Akinso: Dr. Engels hopes that the findings will stimulate other research dealing with cancer risk associated with organ transplantation. For more information, visit www.cancer.gov. This is Wally Akinso at the NIH, Bethesda, Maryland.
About This Audio Report
Date: 11/23/2011
Reporter: Wally Akinso
Sound Bite: Dr. Engels
Topic: Cancer, organ, transplants
Institute(s):
NCI
Additional Info: NIH study finds broad spectrum of cancer risk for organ transplant recipients in US
Organ Transplants and Cancer Risk
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