Prevalencia del cáncer de piel tipo melanoma y no melanoma en pacientes trasplantados de corazón.

BACKGROUND: Skin cancer affects thousands of people around the world and even more the heart transplanted patients due to the degree of immunosuppression to which they are subjected, being more prone to malignancies such as lymphoma and skin cancer. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of skin melanoma and nonmelanoma cancer in heart transplanted patients between 1985 and 2015 in CardioVID Clinic of Medellin, Colombia. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A descriptive study was conducted with heart-transplanted patients from CardioVID Clinic, in the Dermatology Department at CES University, Medellin, Colombia, from February to April 2015. Dermatologists performed a complete dermatological clinical examination and skin biopsies were taken from malignant suspicious lesions to confirm the diagnosis, which was read by and expert dermatopathologist. RESULTS: 41 patients were included, 71.5% were men. The average age was 53.9 years. Fourteen biopsies from 10 patients were taken, finding seven benign and seven malignant lesions, showing a prevalence of 19.5% of skin cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Transplanted patients are considered a special population, since they have additional factors that predispose to the development of skin cancer. For them it is compulsory the daily use of sunscreen and close monitoring by a dermatologist, as well as including this measure in transplantation protocols, especially in patients with heart transplant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]