Immunosuppressive therapy, needed for organ transplant maintenance,
as practised daily by the kidney transplant patient in order to deal with
the biological mechanisms of rejection, and the condition of immune system
toxicity, a characteristic of the patient with terminal renal failure undergoing
dialysis, both involve a chronic situation of immune depression.
Such functional deficiency of the immune system, pharmacologically
induced in the renal transplant patient, but linked to hemic toxicity in
the patient having grave renal failure in hemodialysis, in each case constitutes
a real risk factor for the onset of neoplasia.
It has long been thought that limited functioning of the immune system,
whatever the cause, might be a concomitant cause in the population at large
of the onset of neoplasms. It is therefore becoming the cause of the statistical
rise in neoplastic risk.
These nephropathic patients should thus undergo careful clinical monitoring,
directed at obtaining early diagnosis of the pre-cancerous phases and neoplasia,
in order to intervene at the earliest possible moment.