If you typically don’t consider oropharyngeal cancer as a potential risk among your patients living with HIV, results from a new meta-analysis suggest it’s time for a rethink. Incidence of this HPV-associated cancer was unexpectedly high in the U.S.—particularly for older men, whose relative risk appears similar to that of more well-known HPV-associated cancers such as anal cancer.
Highlighted Study Population and Methods
The study investigators conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of published U.S. reports of oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) rates. General U.S. population data came from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, which showed 56,352 incident OPC cases between 2011 and 2022; meta-analysis was performed using 11 U.S. epidemiologic reports published since 2000. Three studies were used to calculate incident OPC rates among people living with HIV. Studies were excluded if oral cavity and oropharynx cancers were mixed.
Results were used to calculate overall incidence rates and were stratified by sex, age, race, and HIV status. Risk categories were defined: The “high risk” threshold was ≥ 24 per 100,000-person year (PY), and the “low risk” threshold was < 10 per 100,000 PY.
Key Findings
The meta-analysis showed:
An overall OPC incidence of 8.2 per 100,000 PY.
A four-fold difference by gender: Men had an incidence rate of 13.4 per 100,000 PY versus 3.6 per 100,000 PY for women.
Among people living with HIV, the OPC incidence was 27.6 per 100,000 PY (men: 35.2/100,000; women: 12.4/100,000).
Compared with the SEER data:
There were similar trends in overall incidence and sex differences.
The greatest incidence was among men aged 60-79 (32.4/100,000 PY),
There was higher incidence among white, Black, and American Indian/Alaskan Native (25.7–39.6 per 100,000 PY) than Hispanic/LatinX or Asian American/Pacific Islander men (8.8–16.7 per 100,000 PY).
Read an expert analysis from Benjamin Young, M.D., Ph.D. at TheBodyPro.
Source : TheBodyPro
Get involved
Are you living with HIV/AIDS? Are you part of a community affected by HIV/AIDS and co-infections? Do you work or volunteer in the field? Are you motivated by our cause and interested to support our work?
Subscribe
Stay in the loop and get all the important EATG updates in your inbox with the EATG newsletter. The HIV & co-infections bulletin is your source of handpicked news from the field arriving regularly to your inbox.