Hispanics With HIV Face Higher Risk for HPV-Related Cancer

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 24, 2018 (HealthDay News) — HIV-infected Hispanics have an increased risk for human papillomavirus (HPV)-related cancers than Hispanics in the general population, according to a study published online Oct. 22 in Cancer.

Ana P. Ortiz, Ph.D., from the University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, and colleagues used data from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study to estimate HPV-related cancer risk in HIV-infected Hispanics and the general U.S. Hispanic population.

The researchers identified 502 HPV-related cancers over 864,067 person-years of follow-up among HIV-infected Hispanics. The risk for HPV-related cancers was higher among HIV-infected Hispanics than in the general population (standardized incidence ratio range, 3.59 [cervical cancer] to 18.7 [anal cancer in men]); however, the researchers did not observe this finding for oropharyngeal cancer. Hispanic HIV-infected women had higher cervical cancer rates than non-Hispanic whites (NHWs; incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.7) but lower vulvar cancer rates than NHWs (IRR, 0.4) and non-Hispanic blacks (NHBs; IRR, 0.62). Hispanic HIV-infected men had higher penile cancer rates than NHWs (IRR, 2.6) but lower anal cancer rates than NHWs (IRR, 0.54) and NHBs (IRR, 0.65). Five-year survival was greater than 50 percent among HIV-infected Hispanics across HPV-related cancer types, with no major differences by racial/ethnic group.

“HPV vaccination should be promoted among HIV-infected individuals to reduce the burden of HPV-related cancers,” the authors write.

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