Lois J. Loescher, PhD, RN, Associate Professor in the College of Nursing, received a two-year grant from the National Cancer Institute: A Skin Cancer Prevention Video Intervention for Organ Transplant Recipients. Loescher has devoted most of her professional nursing career to studying skin cancer. “I was dismayed when patients with skin cancer who also happened to be solid organ transplant recipients told me they had received little or no information at the time of transplant about their increased skin cancer risk,” she commented.

Organ transplant recipients — persons receiving donated solid organs such as kidneys, pancreas, liver, lungs, or heart — are at exceptionally high risk of squamous cell skin cancer, basal cell cancer, or melanoma. Besides sun exposure, high risk results from immune system changes brought on by life-long immunosuppressive drug therapy that is required after transplantation. The more than 230,000 organ transplant recipients in the U.S. are up to 250 times more likely to develop skin cancer than the general public. Skin cancer has serious outcomes ranging from scarring and cosmetic disfigurement to death. In organ transplant recipients, skin cancer is highly aggressive and hard to treat — prevention and detection are crucial for improving survival.

“Our intervention, never before been examined in this group of patients, is a short engaging video that will provide evidence-based skin cancer prevention and detection information tailored to influence the prevention behaviors in these patients,” explained Loescher. The innovative video will be developed in collaboration with the Skin Cancer Institute at the Arizona Cancer Center and the University of Arizona Information Technology Services. With recent transplant recipients, Loescher’s team will compare changes in sun protection and skin self-examination behaviors in those who receive the video intervention to those not getting the intervention. Participants will be outpatients in the transplantation clinics at the University Medical Center.

Loescher anticipates that the findings will provide a significant means for transplantation teams to better assist organ transplant recipients to engage in behaviors that will prevent getting skin cancer post transplant.

Faculty at the College of Nursing of the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center envision, engage and innovate to help people at all ages optimize health in the context of major life transitions, illnesses, injuries, symptoms and disabilities.