January 18, 2017
HIV weakens the immune system, so people with this virus are at increased risk for several cancers, including the following:
These three cancers are associated with AIDS. However, since the widespread availability of potent combination HIV therapy (ART), they have become less common in Canada and other high-income countries, at least among people who are aware of their infection status and who take ART. Furthermore, thanks to ART, if any of these cancers do develop, HIV-positive people are now much more likely to benefit from anti-cancer therapy and survive than in the time before ART was available.
However, with increased longevity, cancers unrelated to AIDS are appearing in some HIV-positive people. These cancers include the following:
Studies have found conflicting data about whether or not these cancers unrelated to AIDS occur at an earlier age in HIV-positive people compared to HIV-negative people. To clarify this issue, researchers in Canada and the U.S. have collaborated in an analysis of a huge amount of health-related information from nearly 90,000 people in a project called NA-ACCORD (North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration on Research and Design).
In their latest analysis, researchers with NA-ACCORD have found that, compared to HIV-negative people with the same cancers, HIV-positive people were more likely to be diagnosed "with lung, anal, [mouth/throat] and kidney cancer and myeloma at modestly younger ages." Overall, the age difference when these cancers struck HIV-positive people was usually between two and four years earlier than when they occurred in HIV-negative people. The research team advanced several possible reasons as to why this difference might occur. Regardless of the reasons, these results along with previous studies underscore the need for cancer prevention and screening in HIV-positive people.
At the time of the cancer analysis the NA-ACCORD had health-related information on 88,018 HIV-positive people collected from clinics across the U.S. as well as some clinics in the following Canadian provinces:
Researchers focused on participants whose data were available for the years 1998 to 2008. The vast majority (86%) were men. Participants were aged 20 to 79 years. Twenty-eight percent of all participants had previously been diagnosed with AIDS.
Researchers were able to access databases of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) to assess cancer rates in HIV-negative people. Below is a list of cancers on which data were sorted (they are arranged in decreasing order of occurrence in HIV-positive people in the study):
The good news is that the researchers said: "There is not a broad acceleration in the development of cancer in [HIV-positive people] manifesting at younger age across [different types of cancer]."
However, after a detailed analysis in which data from HIV-positive and HIV-negative participants were sorted by age, race and specific time periods (1996-1999, 2000-2003, 2004-2008), researchers stated: "Small but statistically significant younger ages at diagnosis were observed [among HIV-positive people]" for the following cancers:
Anal cancer
Kidney cancer
Lung cancer
Mouth and/or throat cancer
Myeloma
Thus, these cancers generally occurred two to four years earlier among HIV-positive people than among HIV-negative people.
The researchers found that, overall, among people who had been diagnosed with AIDS, one cancer -- myeloma -- tended to occur four years earlier than among HIV-positive people who did not have a diagnosis of AIDS. They also found that HIV-positive people with low CD4+ counts (less than 200 cells/mm3) were more likely to develop lung cancer four years earlier than HIV-positive people with higher cell counts.
The researchers are uncertain as to why some cancers and not others occurred a few years earlier in HIV-positive people. They offer some possible explanations but additional research will be required to better understand the biological basis for their findings.
Whatever the reason for the modestly younger age at which some cancers were diagnosed in HIV-positive people, the underlying drivers for some of these cancers are known, so there are options that can be considered to reduce cancer risk, including at least the following:
As people age, their immune system gradually becomes weaker. Thus the NA-ACCORD team suggested that the "burden of cancer will continue to grow as the [HIV-positive] population ages." They added that this effect of aging on the immune system underscores the "need for cancer prevention and early detection."
Shiels MS, Althoff KN, Pfeiffer RM, et al. HIV infection, immune suppression and age at diagnosis of non-AIDS-defining cancers. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2017; in press.
Study Finds Shift in Cancers as HIV-Positive People Age |
Curing Hepatitis C Lowers but Does Not Eliminate Risk of Liver Cancer |
Cancer Incidence Falling in Large U.S. Veterans HIV Cohort |
No comments have been made.
|
![]() | |||
|
The content on this page is free of advertiser influence and was produced by our editorial team. See our content and advertising policies.