Background: Transplant patients have an extreme risk of skin cancer. We have previously shown that genetic tests can triage people at high risk. This is critical for personalised care.
Purpose: We assessed the transplant patients' perception of skin cancers and willingness to have genetic tests incorporated into their skin cancer care.
Method: We surveyed transplant patients’ perception of, and knowledge on skin cancer, and their interest in using a genetic test for skin cancer risk stratification, and willingness to change their sun protection behaviour if the genetic risk was high in our ASCOT cohort in Queensland, Australia.
Results: We surveyed 106 transplant recipients. Knowledge on skin cancer was high; for example a large proportion of patients had “a lot of” knowledge on skin cancer (61%), considered skin cancer to be a severe disease (45%), thought that they were likely or highly likely to get skin cancer in the next 10 years (69%), and worried about developing skin cancer (74%). 80% of them would have taken a genetic test prior to their transplant to help assess their post transplant skin cancer risk. 99% would improve their sun protection behaviour if their risk was unusually high, and 90% would still go ahead with a transplant regardless of the risk.
Conclusion: Our survey suggests genetic testing would be welcomed by transplant patients in their routine skin cancer care, and may enhance positive sun protective behaviour. This was complemented by the high knowledge on skin cancer.