Photodynamic Therapy for Preventing Skin Cancers in Transplant Recipients?

This therapy may help prevent squamous cell carcinomas.

Organ transplants save the lives of many with severe renal and heart disease. However, the immunosuppressive regimens that prevent organ rejection predispose recipients to skin cancer, which is more frequent and more aggressive in these patients than in the general population. Several preventive measures have been advocated, most of which have proved insufficiently efficacious, unacceptably toxic, or contraindicated in transplant patients. Investigators recently examined the efficacy of topical 5-aminolevulinic acid with photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) for preventing cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) in 12 high-risk kidney or heart transplant recipients (age range, 37–72; years since transplant: average, 14; range, 5–30).

Patients had…

Reviewing Author

Craig A. Elmets, MD

Disclosures

Consultant / Advisory board Astellas Pharmaceuticals

EquityVaxin

Grant / Research support NIH; NIH/NCI; Veteran’s Administration; Ferndale Laboratories; Kyowa Hakko Kirin Pharma, Inc.

Editorial boards Cancer Prevention Research; Photodermatology, Photoimmunology, & Photomedicine; UpToDate; eMedicine; Journal of Dermatological Sciences; JAMA Dermatology

Leadership positions in professional societies American Academy of Dermatology (Vice Chair, Committee on Science and Research); Photomedicine Society (Board of Directors)