WEDNESDAY, April 13 (HealthDay News) -- In the last 15 years, there has been a large increase in the number of non-AIDS-defining cancers among HIV-infected individuals, according to a study published online April 11 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Meredith S. Shiels, Ph.D., M.H.S., from the National Cancer Institute in Rockville, Md., and colleagues assessed the cancer burden in HIV-infected individuals with and without AIDS from 1991 to 2005. Cancer incidence rates were obtained from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study and estimated counts for the U.S. HIV population from U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance data. AIDS-defining cancer (Kaposi sarcoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, and cervical cancer) counts, and non-AIDS-defining cancer counts were estimated by multiplying cancer incidence rates and AIDS population counts.
The investigators found that the estimated number of AIDS-defining cancers in the AIDS population decreased from 34,587 in the period 1991-1995 to 10,325 in 2001-2005. In contrast, the number of non-AIDS-defining cancers increased from 3,193 in 1991-1995 to 10,059 in 2001-2005. From 1991-1995 to 2001-2005 there were increases in anal, liver, prostate, and lung cancers, and Hodgkin lymphoma.
"The burden of non-AIDS-defining cancers has grown among HIV-infected people in the United States. This steep increase has largely been driven by the growth and aging of the HIV population, and for some cancers by increasing incidence rates," the authors write.