Background: Increasing availability of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has led to prolonged survival and rising incidence of non-HIV-defining cancers among patients with HIV. Compared with the general population, risk of colorectal cancer may differ among those with HIV due to immunosuppression, oncogenic viral coinfections, and higher prevalence of risk factors.
Methods: We identified patients (age ≥50 years) diagnosed with HIV, prescribed HAART for ≥6 months, and receiving care in two large health care systems in Dallas, TX. Patients received a first colonoscopy between January 2009 and December 2017. We calculated a standardized prevalence ratio as the ratio of observed to expected number of advanced neoplasia (high-risk adenoma or colorectal cancer) using an age- and sex-matched cohort of patients without HIV (n = 10,250).
Results: Among patients with HIV (n = 839), about two thirds (60.1%) had normal findings at colonoscopy; 6.8% had hyperplastic polyps only, 20.4% had low-risk adenomas, 11.7% had high-risk adenomas, and 1.1% had colorectal cancer. Prevalence of advanced neoplasia was similar between patients with and without HIV, with a standardized prevalence ratio of 0.99 (95% confidence interval, 0.81-1.19).
Conclusions: There was no difference in the prevalence of colorectal neoplasia between patients with and without HIV.
Impact: Patients with HIV appear to have similar risk of colorectal neoplasia compared to those without HIV and can therefore follow average-risk colorectal cancer screening guidelines.
©2020 American Association for Cancer Research.