Background: Pretransplant malignancy is associated with decreased patient and graft survival. Current US guidelines recommend a 2- to 5-year, tumor-free waiting period before transplantation. No large studies have examined the specific, modern day risk of pretransplant thyroid malignancy on patient and graft survival after renal transplant.
Methods: The United Network for Organ Sharing database was queried for all adult isolated renal transplant recipients between 2003 and 2019. Patient characteristics, rates of post-transplant malignancy, and survival were compared between patients with pretransplant thyroid malignancy and without pretransplant thyroid malignancy.
Results: Eighty-six patients had pretransplant thyroid malignancy diagnosed after listing and before renal transplantation. Both overall and graft survival were similar between cohorts (P > .05). There was no significant association between pretransplant thyroid malignancy and patient (hazard ratio: 0.66; P = .31) or graft (hazard ratio:0.32; P = .11) survival on multivariate analysis. Waitlist duration for pretransplant thyroid malignancy patients was significantly increased (1,444 vs 438 days; P < .01), which translated to increased dialysis duration (2,234 vs 1,201 days, P < .01). Pretransplant thyroid malignancy patients did not experience increased post-transplant malignancy (P = .21).
Conclusion: Given no association with decreased patient or allograft survival, our findings suggest that pretransplant thyroid malignancy patients are unnecessarily subjected to increased wait-list duration before transplant. We recommend an individualized approach for pretransplant thyroid malignancy patients diagnosed before or after listing.
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