Commentary
See article on page 514Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma after immunosuppressive therapy
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The development of renal transplantation in the 1960s, made
possible by azathiopine, also allowed the testing of the
immunosurveillance proposed by Burnett and Thomas, that cancer has
its origins in mutations which would usually be eliminated by a healthy
immune system. An increased incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) in transplant recipients was soon recognised but not the generalised increases of malignancy that seemed to be predicted by the theory. Instead, increases of skin, liver, and (possibly) cervix cancers, and
of Kaposi's sarcoma suggested that immunosurveillance operates primarily against malignancies of infective origin, as animal work had
also indicated. It has become clear that this hazard is a feature of
other immunosuppressive drugs, including 6-mercaptopurine, cyclophosphamide, cyclosporine, and methotrexate, and is not dependent on the presence of foreign antigens, extending to patients without organ transplants. In fact, an increased incidence of NHL has been
found in virtually every type of marked
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Increased incidence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in inflammatory bowel disease patients on immunosuppressive therapy but overall risk is low
- R J Farrell, Y Ang, P Kileen, D S O'Briain, D Kelleher, P W N Keeling, and D G Weir
Gut 2000 47: 514-519.[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Sorensen, H. T., Mellemkjaer, L., Nielsen, G. L., Baron, J. A., Olsen, J. H., Karagas, M. R.
(2004). Skin Cancers and Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Among Users of Systemic Glucocorticoids: A Population-Based Cohort Study. JNCI J Natl Cancer Inst
96: 709-711
[Abstract] [Full Text]
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
