Are HIV-Infected Persons at a Higher Risk for Certain Types of Cancer Article

Are HIV-Infected Persons at a Higher Risk for Certain Types of Cancer Comparative to the General Population - Article Example Subjects included in the study were 54, 780 HIV- infected persons in the Adult and Adolescent HIV disease project and 6948 HIV positive outpatients. The subjects were subjected to 2 large prospective cohort studies; the Adult and Adolescent Spectrum of HIV Disease (ASD) project and the HIV Outpatient Study (HOPS). 12-month initial medical review was conducted by the researchers to establish the characteristics of the subjects of study. During this period a total of 60,000 HIV infected persons were observed with over 180,000 person-years of observation. The HOPS study was conducted at 9 HIV specialty clinics in 8 US cities with the data being gathered electronically from physician-patient interactions. Of interest to the researchers included; symptoms, diagnoses, CD4 lymphocyte counts, laboratory test results and socio-demographic characteristics. For the HOPS project, investigators conducted follow-up medical reviews after a six month period. With the total study population of 54, 780 HIV-infected persons, median follow-up times were 2.0 and 2.6 years in the ASD and the HOPS projects respectively. Standardized Rate Ratios (SRRs) was used during data analysis to compare cancer incidences within the HIV infected population together with standardized cancer incidence within the general population. Multivariable Poisson regression was used to evaluate the trends of specific cancer types in HIV infected population. The study found that the incidence of a number of non-Aids defining cancer was higher within the HIV infected population comparative to the general population. The combined HOPS and ASD project identified 3550 cancer incidents of which 80% (2842) of the cases were Aids defining and the remaining 20% non-Aids defining cancer types. Subjecting  Subjecting specific cancer cases to Standardized rate ration (SRR), the resu lts were; 42.9, 21.0, 14.7, 7.7, 3.3, 2.6, 2.5, 2.3, and 1.8 for anal, vaginal, Hodgkin lymphoma, liver, lung, melanoma, oropharyn- geal, leukemia, colorectal and renal cancer types respectively.