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AIDS populations may receive cancer diagnosis at similar age as the general population
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People who have HIV/AIDS are diagnosed with cancer at similar ages to those who do not have HIV/AIDS, after taking into differences in at-risk populations, according to study results.
Previous studies have reported that individuals with HIV are diagnosed with cancer at young ages, which suggests that HIV accelerates carcinogenesis. However, some of this research may not account for differences in population age structures.
Study researchers analyzed 15 HIV/AIDS and cancer registry databases in the United States to compare ages at diagnosis for non–AIDS-defining cancers that occur in populations with and without AIDS. The studies looked at 212,055 individuals with AIDS who were enrolled in the U.S. HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study from 1996 to 2007.
The researchers reported that the proportion of person-time contributed by individuals aged >65 years was 1.5% in the AIDS population, compared with 12.5% in the general population. Individuals with AIDS received diagnosis for most types of cancer at ages approximately 20 years younger than individuals without AIDS, according to the results.
However, further analysis indicated that after adjusting for differences in the populations at risk, the age at which diagnosis occurred for most types of cancer did not differ between the AIDS and general populations, according to results. In the adjusted analysis, comparisons of colon, prostate or breast cancer between AIDS and non-AIDS populations carried a P-value of >.100.
Conversely, individuals with AIDS received earlier diagnoses than individuals without AIDS for lung cancer (median, 50 vs. 54 years) and anal cancer (median, 42 vs. 45 years), according to the results (P<.001). Recipients of Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnoses were significantly older in AIDS populations (median, 42 vs. 40 years; P<.001).
The researchers noted that risk factors such as cigarette smoking were not available for analysis, and that the findings were restricted to non-Hispanic white and black individuals with AIDS. This “could limit the generalizability of the findings to other racial and ethnic groups or to persons with HIV but not AIDS,” they wrote.
For more information:
- Shiels MS. Ann Intern Med. 2010; 153:452-460.