Yanik EL, et al. – Analysts designed this study to illustrate the contribution of solid organ transplant recipients to the pediatric non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) burden in the United States. It was noticed that, solid organ transplant recipients contributed a substantial fraction of NHL diagnoses, particularly diffuse large B–cell lymphoma (DLBCL) diagnoses, among children and adolescents. Over time, this fraction had increased.

Methods

• They performed a cohort study using a linkage between the US transplant registry and 16 cancer registries.
• They estimated cancer incidence rates for people less than 20 years old in the transplant and general populations.
• They applied rates to transplant registry and US census data to estimate pediatric NHL counts for transplant recipients and the general population.

Results

• An estimated 22,270 NHLs were diagnosed in US children and adolescents, during 1990-2012.
• These NHLs included 628 cases diagnosed in transplant recipients.
• It was reported that 2.82% of pediatric NHL diagnoses in the general population (95% confidence interval [CI], 2.45%-3.19%) occurred in transplant recipients.
• The most common subtypes were diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL; 64.5% of cases) and Burkitt lymphoma (BL; 8.6%), among transplant recipients.
• Transplant recipients contributed 7.62% (95% CI, 6.35%-8.88%) and 0.87% (95% CI, 0.51%-1.23%) of diagnoses, for DLBCL and BL.
• Data depicted highest proportion of NHLs that occurred in transplant recipients among children less than 5 years old (4.46%; 95% CI, 3.24%-5.69%) and in more recent calendar years (3.73% in 2010-2012; 95% CI, 2.07%-5.39%).
• They revealed a similarity between DLBCL patterns and transplant recipients contributing 19.78% of cases among children less than 5 years old (95% CI, 12.89%-26.66%) and 11.4% of cases in 2010-2012 (95% CI, 5.54%-17.28%).