[Laryngeal cancer in immunosuppressive therapy with cyclosporin A].

Abstract

As a serious side effect of immunosuppressive therapy following organ transplantation, the incidence of malignancies shows a significant threefold increase compared with the age-matched general population. Under treatment with conventional immunosuppressive drugs (azathioprine, steroids and antilymphocyte globulin) patients are supposed to be susceptible to skin and lip cancers (40%) whereas the recently introduced new immunosuppressive drug cyclosporine A shows a comparable incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphomas (41%) and the patients seem to develop more potentially life threatening tumours of internal organs. In the present paper we report on a case of laryngeal carcinoma following immunosuppressive treatment with cyclosporine A 10 months after heart transplantation.