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Significantly higher incidence of cancer shown in CKD population
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BOSTON – According to a study presented at the National Kidney Foundation Spring Meeting, patients with chronic kidney disease had a statistically higher incidence of digestive system, urinary tract, respiratory tract, skin and hematologic cancers.
Though the associations between CKD and increased cancer risk will require further study, these findings could assist health care policy makers in the development of guidelines regarding cancer screening for patients with CKD, the researchers noted.
“I think it is important to do the surveillance screening for cancers because now, we have more options from the oncology standpoint with immunotherapy and with targeted therapy,” study co-author Ketki Tendulkar, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, told Nephrology News & Issues.
“[Now], these patients can be treated and don't have to be compromised because they have low GFR.”
Tendulkar and colleagues analyzed the electronic health record data from the University of Nebraska Medical Center for 20,400 adult patients diagnosed with CKD from 2008 to 2018.
“[About] 813 developed an invasive malignancy, which is a higher incidence of cancer compared to the general population,” Tendulkar said. “We found that highest incidents of chronic kidney disease were with skin cancer, GI system cancer or the urinary system, leukemia, because it is a farming community, and with the digestive system.”
Researchers found patients with CKD had a significantly higher incidence of cancer at 3,220 per 100,000 population.
This statistic was in stark contrast to the general, non-CKD population in Nebraska, which showed a 645 per 100,000 population incidence of cancer diagnoses.
“We thought that there's a possible link between chronic inflammatory micro-environment in CKD patients with increased inflammatory pro-oxidant micro-environment and some immune dysfunction that happens with chronic kidney disease [leading to] some alteration, causing increased incidence of cancer in this population,” Tendulkar said. “So, we found higher incidence with these particular cancers compared to a general population.” – by Kristine Houck, MA, ELS, and Scott Buzby
Reference:
Tendulkar K, et al. Poster 276. Presented at: National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Meetings; May 8-12, 2019; Boston.
Disclosure: Tendulkar reports no relevant financial disclosures.