US: Men with HIV who have sex with men have elevated incidence of anal cancer

Patients with HIV demonstrated a significantly elevated incidence of anal cancer, with a particularly high risk among patients with AIDS, men who have sex with men and older patients, according to findings published in Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“People with advanced HIV disease (i.e., AIDS) have an elevated risk for in situ and invasive HPV-associated cancers, including anal cancer,” Vivian Colón-López, PhD, MPH, assistant professor at University of Puerto Rico, and colleagues wrote. “This elevated risk is consistent with a high incidence and persistence of anal HPV infection among individuals with HIV infection. Anal cancer risk associated with HIV infection is particularly high among men who have sex with men (MSM), with an estimated 37-fold increased risk compared with the general population.

The researchers evaluated trends in anal cancer incidence using linked data from cancer and HIV registries in nine regions of the United States for the period between 1996 and 2012. Colón-López and colleagues used standardized incidence ratios to compare anal cancer incidence between patients with HIV and the general population. They used Poisson regression to assess the incidence of anal cancer in different subgroups of patients with HIV. Read more via Healio