SAN DIEGO — The number of solid organ transplant survivors is on the rise, a dermatologist told colleagues, and they face unique challenges from higher risks for skin cancer and skin infections because of their suppressed immune systems.
“There are over 450,000 people with a solid organ transplant living in the United States. If you do the math, that works out to about 40 organ transplant recipients for every dermatologist, so there’s a lot of them out there for us to take care of,” Sean Christensen, MD, PhD, associate professor of dermatology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, said at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology 2024. “If we expand that umbrella to include all types of immunosuppression, that’s over 4 million adults in the US.”
Christensen encouraged dermatologists to be aware of the varying risks for immunosuppressive drugs and best screening practices for these patients, and to take advantage of a validated skin cancer risk assessment tool for transplant patients.
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