Post Transplant Skin Cancer
Transplant recipients, because of the immunosuppressive medication they must take to prevent graft rejection, are 60–250 times more likely to develop skin cancer than the general population. They tend to develop multiple squamous cell carcinomas that behave aggressively and spread to other parts of the body. The two principal risk factors for skin cancer are ultraviolet light (UV) exposure and chronic immunosuppressive therapy. Dr. Anne VanBuskirk (Department of Surgery), Dr. Tatiana Oberyszyn (Department of Pathology), and Dr. Donna Kusewitt (Department of Veterinary Biosciences) are working on an interdisciplinary research initiative to investigate how and why immunosuppressed patients develop skin cancers more frequently than the general public.
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Professor Anne VanBuskirk
Department of Surgery
Sagal Ali
English, Biology
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