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. 2022 Oct;18(10):e1683-e1693.
doi: 10.1200/OP.22.00181. Epub 2022 Jul 22.

Palliative Care Use Among People Living With HIV and Cancer: An Analysis of the National Cancer Database (2004-2018)

Jessica Y Islam  1   2 , Leticia Nogueira  3 , Gita Suneja  4 , Anna Coghill  1 , Tomi Akinyemiju  2
Affiliations

Palliative Care Use Among People Living With HIV and Cancer: An Analysis of the National Cancer Database (2004-2018)

Jessica Y Islam et al. JCO Oncol Pract. 2022 Oct.

Abstract

Purpose: People living with HIV (PLWH) diagnosed with cancer are less likely to receive quality cancer treatment compared with HIV-negative patients. Timely provision of palliative care (PC) during cancer treatment can increase patient's survival and improve quality of life. Our objective was to compare the use of PC by HIV status among adults diagnosed with cancer in the United States.

Methods: More than 19 million individuals age 18-90 years diagnosed with the 11 most common cancers among PLWH were selected from the National Cancer Database (2004-2018). The National Cancer Database defined PC as any surgery, radiation, systemic therapy, or pain management treatment with noncurative intent. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine associations between HIV status and PC receipt by cancer site and stage after adjustment for covariates.

Results: The study population included 52,306 HIV-positive (average age: 56.5 years) and 19,115,520 HIV-negative (average age: 63.7 years) cancer cases. PLWH diagnosed with stage I-III cancer were more likely to receive PC compared with their HIV-negative counterparts (adjusted odds ratio [aO]: 1.96; 95% CI, 1.80 to 2.14); however, they were also less likely to receive curative cancer treatment (aOR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.40 to 0.59). PLWH diagnosed with stage IV cancer were less likely to receive PC (aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.66 to 0.74) compared with HIV-negative patients. When evaluated by cancer site, PLWH diagnosed with stage IV lung (aOR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.73 to 0.87) and colorectal (aOR, 0.72, 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.95) cancers were less likely to receive PC than HIV-negative patients.

Conclusion: PLWH diagnosed with stage IV cancer, particularly lung and colorectal cancers, were less likely to receive PC compared with cancer patients without HIV. PLWH with nonmetastatic disease were more likely to receive PC but less likely to receive curative treatment, reinforcing that clinical strategies are needed to improve the quality of care among PLWH.

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Conflict of interest statement

The following represents disclosure information provided by authors of this manuscript. All relationships are considered compensated unless otherwise noted. Relationships are self-held unless noted. I = Immediate Family Member, Inst = My Institution. Relationships may not relate to the subject matter of this manuscript. For more information about ASCO's conflict of interest policy, please refer to www.asco.org/rwc or ascopubs.org/op/authors/author-center.

Open Payments is a public database containing information reported by companies about payments made to US-licensed physicians (Open Payments).

No potential conflicts of interest were reported.

References

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