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Volume 4 Supplement 2

Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Malignancies in AIDS and Other Acquired Immunodeficiencies (ICMAOI): Basic, Epidemiologic, and Clinical Research

The spectrum of HIV-associated cancers in a South African black population: results from a case-control study, 1995–2004

Infectious Agents and Cancer volume 4, Article number: P44 (2009) Cite this article

Accumulating evidence confirms different patterns of HIV-associated cancers in developed and developing countries. We report results of risk for specific cancers associated with HIV-1 infection from an on-going case control study started in government hospitals in Johannesburg in 1995.

Cases consisted of cancers known or suspected to be associated with HIV infection: Kaposi sarcoma (n = 333), Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 223), cancer of the uterine cervix (n = 1586), Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 154), cancers of anogenital organs other than cervix (n = 157), squamous cell skin cancer (n = 70), oral cavity and pharyngeal cancers (n = 319), liver cancer (n = 83), stomach cancer (n = 142), leukaemias (n = 323), myelomas (n = 189), melanoma (n = 53), lung cancer (n = 363) and sarcomas other than Kaposi (n = 93).

The comparison group comprised 3,717 patients with all other cancer types and 682 patients with cardiovascular diseases.

Odds Ratios (OR) were adjusted for age, sex, year of diagnosis, education level and number of sexual partners.

Significantly increased risks associated with HIV-1 infection were found for Kaposi sarcoma (OR = 47.1, 95% CI = 31.9 – 69.8), Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (OR = 5.9, 95% CI = 4.3 – 8.1), cancer of the cervix (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.3 – 2.0), Hodgkin lymphoma (OR = 1.6, 95% CI = 1.0 – 2.7), cancers of anogenital organs other than cervix (OR = 2.2, 95% CI = 1.4 – 3.3) and squamous cell skin cancers (OR = 2.6, 95% CI = 1.4 – 4.9).

Our study results are supported by data from the pathology-based South African National Cancer Registry. In 2001 Kaposi sarcoma was recorded as the leading cancer in black males age 20 to 44 and in black females aged 20 to 29. From age 30, cervical cancers was the most common cancer diagnosed in black women.

The above figures reflect HIV-related cancers prior to the public health sector roll-out of ART (anti-retroviral therapy), which began in 2005.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MRC/NHLS/WITS Cancer Epidemiology Research Group, National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa

    MI Urban, L Stein & F Sitas

  2. Research Division, The Cancer Council NSW, Sydney, Australia

    D O'Connell, X Qin Yu & F Sitas

  3. Cancer Research UK Cancer Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    R Newton

  4. Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    P Ruff, B Donde, M Hale & M Patel

  5. National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa

    M Hale

  6. National Cancer Registry, National Health Laboratory Service, Johannesburg, South Africa

    P Kellett

  7. Schools of Public Health, Universities of Sydney and NSW, Sydney, Australia

    F Sitas

  8. Epidemiology & Genetics Unit (EGU), University of York, UK

    R Newton

Authors
  1. MI Urban
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  2. L Stein
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  3. D O'Connell
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  4. X Qin Yu
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  5. R Newton
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  6. P Ruff
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  7. B Donde
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  8. M Hale
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  9. M Patel
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  10. P Kellett
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  11. F Sitas
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Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Urban, M., Stein, L., O'Connell, D. et al. The spectrum of HIV-associated cancers in a South African black population: results from a case-control study, 1995–2004. Infect Agents Cancer 4 (Suppl 2), P44 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1186/1750-9378-4-S2-P44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1750-9378-4-S2-P44

Keywords

  • Cervical Cancer
  • Skin Cancer
  • Oral Cavity
  • Hodgkin Lymphoma
  • Black Male

Infectious Agents and Cancer

ISSN: 1750-9378

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