AACR Estimates Cancer Incidence Rates in HIV Through 2030

HealthDay News — As HIV becomes a lifetime disease instead of a fatal disease, patients will likely start to mirror other Americans when it comes to the kinds of cancers they develop, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, held from April 1 to 5 in Washington, DC

Jessica Islam, MPH, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues sought to understand how cancer might affect people with HIV through 2030. The team analyzed information obtained from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study, a collection of data from state HIV and cancer registries across the United States.

The researchers estimated that 7909 cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2010 in individuals with HIV: 2719 were immune-related cancers that are common in AIDS patients, and 5190 were other types of cancer. By 2030, the researchers predict, the number of cancer cases overall will decline to 6495, with an especially large decrease (to 710 cases) in the number of AIDS-related cancers. Cases of Kaposi sarcoma are expected to drop but still remain higher than normal in HIV-positive people, Islam told HealthDay, while non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and cervical cancer rates are expected to reach normal levels in some age groups. Meanwhile, cases of other types of cancer are expected to increase, to 5794 cases.

“The aging of the HIV-positive population will result in certain cancers occurring more frequently,” Islam said. “For example, as more HIV-positive men reach an age where prostate cancer becomes more common, the number of cases diagnosed will rise in that population.”

Reference

Cancer Burden May Be Changing for People Living With HIV [press release]. Washington DC: American Association for Cancer Research. Published April 5, 2017. Accessed April 6, 2017.