Histological subtypes of Hodgkin's disease in the setting of HIV infection

• Published in: Annals of hematology Vol. 80; no. 6; pp. 340 - 344
• Main Authors: RAPEZZI, D, UGOLINI, D, FERRARIS, A. M, RACCHI, O, GAETANI, G. F
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin Springer 01.06.2001; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Hematologic and hematopoietic diseases; HIV; Hodgkin Disease - classification; Hodgkin Disease - epidemiology; Hodgkin Disease - virology; Human viral diseases; Humans; Incidence; Infectious diseases; Leukemias. Malignant lymphomas. Malignant reticulosis. Myelofibrosis; Lymphoma, AIDS-Related - epidemiology; Lymphoma, AIDS-Related - pathology; Medical sciences; Prognosis; Retrospective Studies; Viral diseases; Viral diseases of the lymphoid tissue and the blood. Aids; Human; Retroviridae; Hodgkin disease; AIDS; Malignant hemopathy; Lentivirus; Lymphoma; Epidemiology; Incidence; Infection; Virus; Concomitant disease; Lymphoproliferative syndrome; Viral disease; Histological type; Human immunodeficiency virus; Subtype
• ISSN: 0939-5555; 1432-0584
• DOI: 10.1007/s002770100294

The relative incidence of Hodgkin's disease (HD) has been found to have increased approximately seven times in HIV-infected patients. We analyzed the histological distribution of HIV-associated HD with the aim of clarifying purported difference(s) from de novo HD. References on HIV/AIDS-associated HD were retrieved from the most complete databases. Nineteen articles were the subject of our analysis. Seventeen of them reported data on the histological type of HIV/AIDS-associated HD patients; the route of infection and age of the patients were also considered when available. According to the Peto's methodology, histological types were compared with those from two large studies in the United States on de novo HD: 3,245 cases from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) and 1,140 from Stanford University. The analysis of the two groups showed statistically significant differences (p<0.001) in the percentage of all histological types and odds ratios (OR) of the pooled effect of 0.4 (95% CI: 0.3-0.6) for lymphocyte predominance (LP), 0.3 (95% CI: 0.2-0.4) for nodular sclerosis (NS), 3.2 (95% CI: 2.6-3.8) for mixed cellularity (MC), and 6.3 (95% CI: 4.5-8.8) for lymphocyte depletion (LD). Comparison with the Stanford University series yielded similar results. Whilst retrospective and based on a limited number of cases, our data confirm a higher incidence of unfavorable histological subtypes in HIV-infected patients and show a reduction in the observed cases of good prognosis subtypes. Prospective studies, with careful histological observations, are required to better evaluate the characteristics of the LP subtype in the special setting of HIV infection.