Skin cancer in immunosuppressed transplant patients：Vigilance matters

Liver transplantation （LT） is a widely-accepted, definitivetherapy of irreversible liver diseases including hepatitisC, alcoholic liver disease and metabolic liver disease.After transplantation, patients generally use a varietyof immunosuppressive medications for the rest of theirlives to prevent rejection of transplanted liver. Mortalityafter LT is mainly caused by recurrence of alcoholichepatitis which is mostly seen in the patients whoresume heavy drinking. On the other hand, de-novomalignancies after LT are not seldom. Skin cancers makeup 13.5% of the de-novo malignancies seen in thesepatients. Malignancies tend to affect survival earlier inthe course with a 53% risk of death at 5 years afterdiagnosis. We aimed to report a case who underwentLT secondary to alcoholic liver disease and developedsquamous cell carcinoma of the skin eighteen yearsafter transplantation. In summary, transplant recipientsare recommended to be educated on self examinationfor skin cancer; health care providers should be furthersuspicious during routine dermatological examinations ofthe transplant patients and biopsies of possible lesionsfor skin cancer is warranted even many years aftertransplantation.