1. ^*Department of Dermatology, UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA
2. ^†UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

Correspondence: Ervin Epstein Jr, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco General Hospital, 1001 Potrero Avenue, Building 100 – Room 269, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA. Email: epsteine@derm.ucsf.edu

¹Current address: Department of Dermatology, University Medical Center Charite, Berlin, Germany.

Received 7 June 2004; Revised 21 September 2004; Accepted 4 October 2004; Published online 21 December 2004.

Abstract

The development of extensive and severe non-melanoma skin cancer is an extremely common complication of organ transplantation and is assumed to be caused by long-term treatment with anti-rejection drugs (ARD). Despite this florid clinical problem, ARD treatments have been reported to affect experimental murine skin carcinogenesis only weakly. We report here that treatment of cesium-137-irradiated Ptch1+/- mice with immunosuppressive doses of cyclosporine A plus prednisolone for 4-1/2 mo increased basal cell carcinoma burden by 2.5-fold. Thus, these mice provide a good model for study of the effects of long-term administration of ARD on at least one type of non-melanoma skin cancer.