Skin complications in immunosuppressed patients: follow-up of kidney recipients

Thirth-five patients who received thirty-seven kidney transplants (two patients received live; the rest cadaver kidneys) were followed up for skin complications. There were thirty-nine instances of overt skin infection. In twenty-one instances we encountered fungal, in ten pyogenic and in eight viral infection. The course of these infections was more severe and more protracted than is usual in other patients. In nine instances, the skin infection contributed directly to the death of the patient. One patient developed Kaposi's sarcoma and another pyoderma gangrenosum. This study suggests that immunosuppressive treatment, which all our patients were continuously receiving, enhances their susceptibility to infection and to malignancy and may have been an aetiological factor in pyoderma gangrenosum.