The organizers of the 49th National Congress of the Spanish Academy of Dermatology and Venereology awarded the study presented by Dr. Álvaro Gómez-Tomás, a member of the Dermatology Service and collaborator in the dermatologic monitoring of solid organ transplant recipients office at the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital, led by Dr. Carla Ferrándiz-Pulido. The doctor received the award for the best communication of the congress for the paper that evaluates the role of the different immunosuppressive treatments received by transplant patients in the risk of developing skin cancer, one of the most frequent complications in this segment of the population.

The study reviewed the records of the more than 1,000 patients who have received a solid organ transplant at Vall d'Hebron Hospital during the last decade. The review compared the different immunosuppressive treatments prescribed with the diagnoses of skin cancer (squamous cell, basal cell or Merkel cell carcinoma, and also melanoma). The analysis showed that substituting a calcineurin inhibitor (CNI) for an mTOR inhibitor reduces the oncologic risk. However, the introduction of the mTOR inhibitor without removing the CNI was also able to reduce the risk in very high-risk patients. For example, Caucasian, male, older individuals with a history of cancer. In diagnosed patients who had or had survived a dermatologic tumor, the introduction of an mTOR inhibitor was associated with a reduction in relapses.

The researchers expect that the evidence provided by this work will help transplant teams to choose the best immunosuppressive regimen for their patients and thus reduce the incidence of cancer in this population.