Washington Post
Thursday, February 6, 2003; Page A19
Two patients developed melanoma from their new kidneys even though the donor was successfully treated for the cancer many years earlier, Scottish doctors have reported. One recipient died, and the other recovered.
Transfer of cancer from a donated organ to a transplant patient is rare, and the chances of it occurring long after the donor was treated were thought to be extremely unlikely. The longest known interval in a donor-related melanoma was eight years between surgery and transplant.
But in today's New England Journal of Medicine, researchers said two patients got cancer from a donor who had a melanoma skin lesion removed 16 years earlier and was thought to be cancer free.
Melanoma cells had apparently been dormant in the donor's kidneys until the transplant, said Dr. Rona M. MacKie of Glasgow University, who treated the recipients. The cancer cells flourished because medicines given to the patients to prevent rejection of the transplants had suppressed their disease-fighting immune systems.
"Anyone who's had invasive melanoma should not be a transplant donor in the future," MacKie said.