De novo malignancies after intestinal and multivisceral transplantation

Background. Maintenance immunosuppression required after organ transplantation creates a permissive environment in which cancer cells can proliferate because of lack of natural immunologic surveillance. With more than a decade of clinical experience, this report is the first to address the risk of de novo cancer after intestinal transplantation. Methods. A total of 168 consecutive intestinal transplant recipients (86 children and 82 adults) were studied, of whom 52% were male and 91% were white. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results data was used to count expected rates of de novo cancers in the general population matched for age, sex, and length of follow-up. Results. With a mean follow-up of 4741 months, 7 (4.2%) patients developed nonlymphoid de novo cancer, with a cumulative risk of 3% at 5 years and 28% at 10 years. Of these malignancies, one was donor-driven adenocarcinoma. With 0.58 being the expected rate of malignancy for the general population, the risk among intestinal recipients was 8.7 times higher (P0.01). Such morbidity was significantly higher (50 times) among younger patients (<25 years), with a slight male preponderance. Induction immunosuppression was associated with early onset of de novo cancer. Patient survival after diagnosis of de novo cancer was 72% at 1 year, 57% at 2 years, and 29% at 5 years. Conclusion. With conventional immunosuppression, intestinal recipients are at a significantly higher risk of developing de novo cancer when compared with the general population. Thus, a novel tolerogenic immunosuppressive strategy has been recently implemented to reduce the lifelong need for immunosuppression. Intestinal transplantation has recently evolved to be the standard of care for patients with irreversible intestinal failure who no longer can be maintained on total parenteral nutrition (1, 2). Furthermore, survival outcomes continue to improve, with current rates comparable to thoracic and other abdominal organ transplantation (3, 4). Historically, intestinal allografts have been at a higher risk for rejection compared with other solid organs, with the subsequent need for