Director of Transplant Urology, Saint Barnabas
Medical Center
While women have their unique set of circumstances surrounding transplantation, men also have gender-specific issues affecting their health. For example, prostate cancer has become the most commonly diagnosed cancer in American men as well as their second most common cause of cancer death.
The incidence of prostate cancer increases with age. Remarkable advances in the field of transplantation have made it possible for people in their 50s, 60s, and even in their 70s, to receive kidney transplants. “As more men over the age of 50 become eligible for transplantation, the incidence of prostate cancer among male transplant candidates and recipients is expected to rise,” reports Matthew I. S. Whang, M.D., Director of Transplant Urology at Saint Barnabas Medical Center.
Dr. Whang recommends that every man aged 50 and older being evaluated for kidney transplantation also be screened for prostate cancer with a blood test called prostate-specific antigen (PSA). “If  cancer is discovered, we recommend aggressive treatment with surgery or radiation therapy,” says Dr. Whang. “If it’s caught early, prostate cancer is curable.”Dr. Whang and a team of physicians at the Renal and Pancreas Transplant Centers have established guidelines for the screening and treatment of prostate cancer in renal transplant recipients. Those guidelines were published last year in the medical journal Transplantation Proceedings.
A diagnosis of prostate cancer does not have to prevent someone from receiving a kidney transplant. Currently, renal failure patients with a history of any type of cancer must be disease-free for two years before they can be listed on any organ transplant waiting list. Following prostate cancer treatment, a man who has been free of any evidence of cancer for two years can be eligible for a kidney transplant.
Like the general population, male kidney transplant recipients over the age of 50 should be screened annually for prostate cancer with
both a PSA and a rectal exam. It is a relatively slow growing cancer and when detected early carries good prognosis. Surgery and radiation therapy are the standard treatments. State-of-the-art radiation treatment modalities do not expose the transplanted kidney to damaging radiation.
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