Hispanics with HIV at Greater Risk of HPV-Related Cancers

Hispanic adults in the US who are infected with human immunodeficiency virus face a greater risk of cancers caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) than Hispanics in the general public, a new study has found.

The highest excess risk was observed for anal cancer, Ortiz said, highlighting the increased burden of this malignancy among HIV-infected individuals.

In general, the high incidence and strong persistence of HPV infections among HIV-infected patients are a result of immunosuppression. This, in turn, leads to carcinogenesis and tumor development.

To zero in on Hispanics, Ortiz and colleagues from the National Cancer Institute and other US cancer centers reviewed data from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study collected by state registries. Investigators considered both the incidence and survival rates among Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites (NHW) and non-Hispanic blacks (NHB).

Among Hispanics living with HIV, there were 502 HPV-related cancer diagnoses during 864,067 person-years of follow-up. Except for oropharyngeal cancer, the risk of HPV-related cancers was higher among HIV-infected Hispanics than in the general population, investigators noted.

When the researchers compared Hispanics with HIV to NHWs and NHBs with HIV, they found that the Hispanics had higher rates of cervical and penile cancer.

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