# Age and Cancer Incidence in 5.2 Million People With Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV): The South African HIV Cancer Match Study

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-ruffieux-age-cancer-hiv-south-africa-cid-2023/  
OnCo record `paper-ruffieux-age-cancer-hiv-south-africa-cid-2023` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Linking national laboratory HIV records to the cancer registry for 5.2 million people with HIV showed that cervical cancer and Kaposi sarcoma dominate in younger people, while cancers not caused by infections take over after about age 54.

## Summary

The South African HIV Cancer Match study links HIV-related laboratory records from the National Health Laboratory Service with cancer diagnoses from the National Cancer Registry for 2004 to 2014. The authors included people with HIV-related tests on separate days and modelled cancer incidence as a function of age with natural splines.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Journal: Clinical Infectious Diseases
- Year: 2023
- DOI: 10.1093/cid/ciac925
- Authors: Ruffieux Y, Muchengeti M, Olago V, Dhokotera T, Bohlius J, Egger M, Rohner E
- Findings: 5,222,827 people living with HIV had 29,580 incident cancers, most often cervical cancer (7,418), Kaposi sarcoma (6,380) and breast cancer (2,748).; At age 40 the commonest cancer was cervical cancer in women and Kaposi sarcoma in men; Kaposi sarcoma rates in men peaked at age 34 (101 per 100,000 person-years).; Infection-unrelated cancers overtook infection-related ones after age 54; in older men prostate cancer became the commonest.
- What it means: As people with HIV in South Africa live longer on treatment, screening and early detection for cancers not caused by infection matter more, while cervical cancer control stays essential.
- Caveats: Only cancers confirmed by a laboratory are in the registry.; Data end in 2014, before universal treatment was fully rolled out.

## Sources

- Clin Infect Dis 2023: https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciac925
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36461916/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Breast cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/breast-cancer/), [Cervical cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/cervical/), [Kaposi sarcoma](https://onco.cc/cancers/kaposi-sarcoma/), [Prostate cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/prostate/)
- institutions: [National Cancer Registry, South Africa](https://onco.cc/institutions/national-cancer-registry-south-africa/), [National Health Laboratory Service, South Africa](https://onco.cc/institutions/nhls-south-africa/)
- people: [Mazvita Muchengeti](https://onco.cc/people/mazvita-muchengeti/)

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