Men with HIV at greater risk for non-AIDS cancers

AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research

The incidence of non-AIDS cancers is elevated among people with HIV and men appear to have a greater standardized incidence ratio for non-AIDS cancers when compared with women with HIV.

“This data is important because people with HIV are living longer now and they are reaching ages where they are at risk for chronic diseases such as cancer,” Meredith Shiels, MHS, epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, said during a press conference.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill compared the incidence rate of all non-AIDS cancers combined among people with HIV to the general population and estimated modification of the association by gender and AIDS diagnosis.

Eleven studies including more than 2,100 non-AIDS cancer cases were included in the analysis; non-AIDS cancers were defined as all cancers with the exception of cervical cancer, Kaposi’s sarcoma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Results indicated that people with HIV are at a greater risk for developing non-AIDS cancers; the standardized incidence ratio for men with HIV was greater (2.3) when compared with women with HIV (1.5).

“Our study cannot address why those who are HIV infected are at greater risk for developing non-AIDS cancers, but physicians should be aware of the potential increased rate and when treating those with HIV, physicians should carefully monitor modifiable cancer risk factors, such as smoking, which is also known to be at a higher prevalence among people with HIV," Shiels said. – by Jennifer Southall

For more information:
Shiels M. #A117. Presented at: AACR Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research; Nov. 16-18, 2008; Washington.