Overall Incidence of Posttransplant Malignancies and Clinicopathologic Features of Thyroid Cancer in Renal Allograft Recipients; 40-years Single Center's Experience / 대한내분비외과학회지

ABSTRACT

PURPOSE: Prolonged immunosuppression after kidney transplantation (KT) is known to increase the risk of various cancers; however, few studies on posttransplant thyroid carcinoma (TC) have been reported in the literature. We investigated the incidence of posttransplant malignancies (PTMs) and the clinicopathological features of postransplant TC. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of 1,622 patients who underwent KT from Mar. 1969 to Dec. 2008. Overall incidence and the standardized incidence ratio (SIR) of posttransplant TC according to the 2007 annual report of the Korea Cancer Center Registry were calculated. RESULTS: During the mean follow-up period of 109 months, 137 (8.4%) recipients were identified as having PTM, including five males and seven females with papillary TC. (0.74%) SIR of the TC was 12.4 in males and 0.5 in females. During the mean follow-up period of 69.1 months, three (25.0%) patients with TC developed loco-regional recurrence. CONCLUSION: Overall incidence of TC was higher compared to the general Korean population (0.74% vs 0.04%) without differences in gender distribution (P=0.086) and higher tendency of locoregional recurrence in clinical carcinoma (P=0.0512). Therefore, to ensure early detection and favorable outcome of posttransplant TC, frequent surveillance using ultrasonography and prophylactic central neck dissection should be considered.