Localized prostatic cancer in patients submitted to renal transplant.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: An attempt is made to evaluate the incidence of prostate cancer in patients who have previously undergone a kidney transplant surgery and to determine the best therapeutic approach to this target group. MATERIAL AND METHODS: All kidney transplant male patients over 40 years of age were studied with respect to diseases unrelated to the transplants, which later affected them, mainly focusing on neoplastic disease and, more specifically, prostate cancer. RESULTS: Of 397 kidney-transplanted patients, 146 (37%) were males, at least 40 years old. Among the 10 of them (6.8%) who developed neoplastic diseases, there were two cases (1.4%) of prostatic cancer. Both were treated with a radical retropubic prostatectomy with no technical difficulty, in spite of the presence of a graft in one of the iliac fossa. CONCLUSIONS: Prostate cancer incidence in kidney transplant patients is still low (1.8%), but it will certainly heighten as transplants are performed in increasingly older people and as better immunosuppressive drugs are introduced to lengthen the survival of grafts and patients. Because these cancers are expected to be more aggressive as a consequence of continuous immunosuppression, early diagnosis is of critical importance, and those patients should be made aware of the need for frequent screening for prostate cancer.