No increase of melanoma after kidney transplantation in the northern part of The Netherlands

One medical problem of renal transplant patients who receive immuncisuppression therapy is the development of a malignancy during the long-term follow-up. Existing studies, however, are not in agreement over whether patients who undergo renal transplantation have an increased risk of melanoma. The aim of this study was to determine the risk of melanoma in renal transplantation patients in the northern part of The Netherlands. We linked a cohort of 1125 patients who received a renal transplantation in the University Medical Centre Groningen between 1989 and 2003 with the Cancer Registry of the Comprehensive Cancer Centre North-Netherlands, to identify all the melanoma patients in this cohort. The risk for melanoma after renal transplantation was calculated using the Standardized Incidence Ratio and the absolute excess risk. With a mean follow-up of 7.26 +/- 4.48 years, one patient developed a melanoma after the renal transplantation; the number of melanoma patients was among the lowest compared with other studies. The absolute excess risk for melanoma after renal transplantation was 0.5/10000 person-years. Although several epidemiologic studies have shown that the risk of melanoma is increased in renal transplantation patients who receive immunosuppression therapy to prevent allograft rejection, this significant increase was not found in this study. The low net immunosuppressive agents given might be responsible for this low number of melanomas.