Abstract
The number of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is increasing in Japan. Since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the mortality of HIV infection has decreased. Consequently, the number of HIV-infected patients with digestive cancer, which is one of the non-AIDS-related malignancies, is expected to increase. We performed surgery for digestive cancer in six patients with HIV infection. Three patients had gastric cancer, two had colorectal cancer, and one had bile duct cancer. No serious postoperative complications were seen among the patients. Two patients who received chemotherapy after the operation showed no opportunistic infections and myelosuppression. One patient having gastric cancer with peritoneal metastasis died of progression of cancer (survival days after operation, 511). Another patient with gastric cancer who rejected therapy for HIV died of AIDS (595 days). A patient having colorectal cancer with paraaortic lymph node metastasis received chemotherapy and was alive in partial response (266 days). The patient with bile duct cancer and one with colorectal cancer and the other patient with gastric cancer underwent curative resections and were alive without recurrence (322 days, 470 days and 47 days). These results suggest that since the best multidisciplinary treatment was able to be administered and safe surgery was able to be performed in HIV-positive patients, their prognosis was similar to that of HIV-negative patients by the virtue of introduction of HAART.
