Prevalence of HIV/AIDS among Breast Cancer Patients and the associated Clinico-pathological features

Abstract

Introduction: There is uncertainty as to the exact interaction between HIV and Breast Cancer. Available studies are inconclusive about any relation whether causal or protective and the number of patients in these studies small. Objective: To determine the prevalence of HIV among confirmed incident breast cancer cases and to describe the associated clinico-pathological features. Design: Analytical cross sectional study Methods: Over a period of 6 months consecutively eligible patients were recruited from the Mulago Hospital breast clinic. Breast lesions were biopsied and blood withdrawn for HIV sero-survey. Collected data was double entered into Epidata version v 3.1.1, exported to STATA 10.0 for analysis. Results: Sixty two breast cancer patients consented to participate in the study and of these, 22(35.48%) were positive for HIV compared to HIV prevalence in the general population of 6-7%. All the participants were female. The mean age of HIV negative subjects was 45 years (range: 21-80 years) and for HIV positive subjects was 32.4 years (range 18-52 years). There was a significant association between HIV status and age, BMI and CD4 Counts as well as for histological grade and stage (P< 0.024). Conclusion: The prevalence of HIV among the studied breast cancer group was significantly higher than that in the general population. HIV was associated with poor prognostic factors. A high index of suspicion of the co-existence of these two diseases in a context of high HIV preva-lence is warranted. Future studies should explore for a causal association.