Lanz J, et al. - Authors sought to report the clinicopathologic features of and identify factors related to aggressive squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in solid organ transplant recipients. Important risk factors in aggressive SCC in solid organ transplant recipients are anatomical site, differentiation, tumor diameter, tumor depth, and perineural invasion.

Methods

• Experts conducted a retrospective multicentric case series that included 51 patients who underwent solid organ transplantation and were found to have aggressive SCC, defined by nodal or distant metastasis or death by local progression of primary SCC.
• They completed the standard questionnaires between July 18, 2005, and January 1, 2015.
• They evaluated the data between February 22, 2016, and July 12, 2016.

Results

• As per data, out of the 51 participants, 43 were men and 8 were women, with a median age of 51 years (range, 19-71 years) at time of transplantation and 62 years (range, 36-77 years) at time of diagnosis of aggressive SCC.
• Findings suggested that the distribution of aggressive SCC was preferentially on the face (34 [67%]) and scalp (6 [12%]), followed by the upper extremities (6 [12%]).
• They noted poor differentiation of total of 21 tumors (41%), with a median tumor diameter of 18.0 mm (range, 4.0-64.0 mm) and median tumor depth of 6.2 mm (range, 1.0-20.0 mm).
• In 20 patients (39%), perineural invasion was present, while 23 (45%) showed a local recurrence.
• Results demonstrated that the 5-year overall survival rate was 23%, while 5-year disease-specific survival was 30.5%.