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. 2017 Dec;13(3):68-79.
doi: 10.1177/1745505717731970. Epub 2017 Sep 27.

Cancer screening in women living with HIV infection

David M Aboulafia  1   2
Affiliations

Cancer screening in women living with HIV infection

David M Aboulafia. Womens Health (Lond). 2017 Dec.

Abstract

The number of women living with HIV continues to increase. Thirty years into the AIDS epidemic, we now expect those with access to highly active antiretroviral to survive into their seventh decade of life or beyond. Increasingly, the focus of HIV care is evolving from preventing opportunistic infections and treating AIDS-defining malignancies to strategies that promote longevity. This holistic approach to care includes detection of malignancies that are associated with certain viral infections, with chronic inflammation, and with lifestyle choices. The decision to screen an HIV-infected women for cancer should include an appreciation of the individualized risk of cancer, her life expectancy, and an attempt to balance these concerns with the harms and benefits associated with specific cancer screening tests and their potential outcome. Here, we review cancer screening strategies for women living with HIV/AIDS with a focus on cancers of the lung, breast, cervix, anus, and liver.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS; cancer screening; non-AIDS defining malignancies; women.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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