Survival in HIV+ and HIV− women with breast cancer treated at the National Cancer Institute in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, between 2000 and 2014

Abstract

Background: The goal was to assess the survival of HIV+ women and HIV- women for breast cancer at a referral center for cancer treatment in Brazil.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed. A total of 136 women patients with breast cancer were included, being 36 HIV+ women and 100 HIV- women. Controls (HIV-) were selected according to HIV status, matched by date of cancer diagnosis, clinical stage, breast cancer treatment, and date of birth. Sociodemographic and cancer treatment data, as well as clinical HIV data, were extracted from physical and electronic medical records and secondary Instituto Nacional of cancer databases. To estimate survival, the Kaplan-Meier method was used. To determine the factors associated with mortality, Cox regression were used.

Results: The mean age of patients at diagnosis of cancer was 52 years. Regarding marital status, HIV+ patients had a higher frequency of single status). There were 44.1% deaths that occurred during the study period. Among HIV+ patients, there were 16 deaths, 15 of which were due to cancer. In HIV- patients there were 44 deaths (44%), with 32 cancer as the cause of death and 12 due to other causes. For the analysis of Overall. Differences were found in overall survival at 60 months (p=0.026), 55% and 69% respectively. The increased risk of death at 60 months among HIV+ women was observed also, after adjusting for schooling and molecular subtype (HR=1.95; 95% CI 1.03 – 3.70; p=0.041).

Conclusion: HIV infection influenced a worse prognosis for women with breast cancer regardless of tumor factors.