Cervical Cancer Incidence Increasing Among Women With HIV.

2001 JUN 28 - (NewsRx Network) -- by Michael Greer, senior medical writer - Unlike other AIDS-defining illnesses, the prevalence of invasive cervical cancer among [HIV.sup.+] women has risen during the era of antiretroviral therapy.

M. Dorrucci and colleagues at the Istituto Superiore di Sanita in Rome, Italy, compared the incidence of invasive cervical cancer before and after the development of the first effective HIV drugs, around 1991, and the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1995.

Despite the benefits of HAART, the number of invasive cervical cancer cases among female HIV patients continues to rise, Dorrucci and coworkers found.

The researchers monitored 483 women for a median of seven years. Between 1981, the year AIDS was first recognized, and 1995 the incidence of all AIDS-defining illnesses including invasive cervical cancer rose steadily, according to their report.

However, since the development of HAART in 1995, the rate of all other AIDS-defining illnesses has fallen. The risk of invasive cervical cancer, however, has continued to climb for female HIV patients, Dorrucci and research team said. In fact, patients living between 1996 and 1998 were almost five times more likely to develop invasive cervical cancer than if they had lived in the period from 1981 to 1995, study data showed (relative hazard 4.75, 95% ...