Breast cancer in women with human immunodeficiency virus infection: pathological, clinical, and prognostic implications.

Background: AIDS and breast cancer have become two important public health issues for women. Of interest is the prolonged survival of patients diagnosed with HIV infection as a result of the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). With improved survival, we are likely to see more HIV-infected patients with breast cancer.

Methods: This study, which is a review of our experience at Harlem Hospital Center, New York, between 2000 and 2008, compared HIV-positive with HIV-negative breast cancer patients, with attention to tumor size, stage, grade, molecular markers and lymphovascular invasion, treatment, and patient survival.

Results: Only 63 of 370 patients with breast carcinoma were tested for HIV, and 6 of the 63 women tested positive for HIV. We, therefore, compared the clinical features and tumor characteristics seen in the 6 HIV-infected women with those of the 57 HIV-seronegative breast cancer patients. We found no differences in presentation, median age, and tumor morphology in the two groups of patients. When the patients in our previous report on 5 HIV-positive breast cancer patients were added to the present group, the overall 5-year survival rate among the 11 HIV-infected patients was 75%. Of note is the finding that HIV infection in premenopausal women was not associated with aggressive breast cancer subtypes with poor survival outcome.

Conclusions: These results demonstrate that histological subgroups and 5-year survival appear similar among HIV-positive breast cancer patients.