Men living with HIV enjoy a diminished risk of prostate cancer that is not an apparent result of differences in screening or other various risk factors evaluated in a recent study, aidsmap reports. Publishing their findings in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, researchers studied 17,424 HIV-positive and 182,799 HIV-negative men enrolled in care at Kaiser Permanente (KP).

The researchers enrolled men from KP Northern California starting in 1996 and from KP Southern California starting in 2000 and followed them until they either received a prostate cancer diagnosis, were lost to follow-up, or until the end of 2007.

Seventy-four men with HIV were diagnosed with prostate cancer, for an incidence rate of 102 per 100,000 person-years, compared with 1,195 cases among HIV-negative men, for an incidence rate of 131 per 100,000 years.

The HIV-positive men were more likely to receive diagnoses of less advanced cancers: 95 percent of them had state II, compared with 89 percent of the HIV-negative men; and 5 versus 11 percent had stage III or IV. Ninety-three percent of the men with HIV had localized rather than regional or distal cancer, compared with 83 percent of the HIV-negative men. The HIV cohort also had lower recent PSA levels when compared with the HIV-negative group, 10 versus 11.

The researchers stated that future study into the cause of lowered rates of prostate cancer among HIV-positive men is warranted.

To read the aidsmap story, click here.

To read the study abstract, click here.