Immunosuppression and Cancer

BESIDES their beneficial effect in retarding or arresting the growth of certain types of neoplasms, a number of anticancer drugs may cause impairment of antibody synthesis and cell-mediated immunity. These immunosuppressive effects have been used therapeutically to prevent and control rejection of organ homografts and also to treat a variety of clinical states. However, the anticancer agents have mutagenic, teratogenic, and oncogenic properties in experimental animals and presumably also in humans. The present report is concerned with their potential oncogenic effects in man. Evidence has been accumulated from three groups of patients about which full details are being published in Cancer.l It should be emphasized that the vast majority of the cases have been contributed to us or have appeared in the literature and did not come from our own center. The groups include (1) immunosuppressed organ transplant recipients; (2) patients with a variety of noncancerous diseases treated with immunosuppressive agents; (3) Patients with malignant tumors who received cancer chemotherapy.