American Society Nephrology Kidney transplantation apparently comes with its risks. A new study claims that measuring specific kinds of immune calls may foresee the elevated threat of skin cancer post kidney transplantation.

The scientists supposedly gauged levels of vital immune cells in around 116 kidney transplant recipients, out of which, around 65 contracted squamous cell skin cancers.

“There are differences in the immune system, and some of these are associated with the development of skin cancer after transplantation,” commented, Robert Carroll, MD, The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woodville, South Australia.

The outcomes seemed to display that patients with elevated levels of an immune cell type known as Tregulatory cells, or ‘Tregs’ together with less levels of another kind of immune cell named Natural Killer cells, appeared to have more than 5-fold risk. The elevated danger of skin cancers following kidney transplantation may be connected to the use of immunosuppressive drugs to avert rejection.

Carroll explained, “Squamous cell cancer of the skin affects about 30 percent of kidney transplant patients after ten years of immunosuppression. A small number of patients develop multiple skin cancers per year, but there is no laboratory test to determine which transplant recipients will develop multiple skin cancers in the future.”

It seemed to be established by upcoming studies that gauging immune cells may offer a helpful new method to envisage the threat of skin cancer following kidney transplantation.

Carroll remarked, “If a test can confirm high risk of skin cancer development, this may help clinicians to tailor immunosuppressive regimens for individual patients.”

The study was supposedly restricted to British transplant patients. Ingenious scientific studies may be required to find out whether the immune system examination may be relevant to other populations of patients around the world, with diverse immunosuppressive regimens and conflicting exposure to ultraviolet light.

The study was published in the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN).