HIV prevalence among oesophageal cancer patients in rural South Africa

Esophageal cancer (EC) is the ninth most common cancer worldwide, with 604,100 new cases each year and ranking sixth in terms of mortality. Individuals infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have a higher prevalence of certain malignancies compared with the general population. There have been reports suggesting an increased risk of EC among people living with HIV infection. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the prevalence of HIV infection among EC patients in rural Africa. This is a records-based retrospective descriptive study of patients presenting with EC referred from surrounding hospitals in the Eastern Cape to Frere Hospital from January 2016 to December 2018. A total of 125 EC cases were recorded during this period. Information collected from patients’ records included age, sex, ethnic group, HIV status, tumour location and stage of the disease. Fourteen patients were diagnosed with HIV, translating to a prevalence of 11% (95% confidence interval (CI): 5–15). There was no relationship between the risk of HIV infection and the stages of EC (p = .122). In addition to this, the risk of HIV infection showed no relationship to tumour location (p = .531). In summary, we found that the overall prevalence of HIV infection in EC patients was 11% and this was not associated with the stage or location of cancer at diagnosis in this rural population.