Elevated cancer-specific mortality in PWH has been demonstrated for non-AIDS-defining malignancies. However, additional clinical endpoints of interest, including patient-reported outcomes (PROs), have not been systematically examined in PWH and cancer. We evaluated differences in patient-reported symptomology between cancer patients with versus without HIV using data from 12,529 patients at the Moffitt Cancer Center, including 55 with HIV. The symptoms were assessed using the Edmonton Symptom Assessment Scale (ESAS), which asks patients to rank 12 symptoms on a scale of 1−10, with scores ≥7 considered severe. The responses across all questions were summed to create a composite score. Vital status through t July 2021 was determined through linkage to the electronic health record. PWH reported a higher composite ESAS score on average (44.4) compared to HIV-uninfected cancer patients (30.7, p-value < 0.01). In zero-inflated negative binomial regression models adjusted for cancer site, sex, and race, the composite ESAS scores and the count of severe symptoms were 1.41 times (95% CI: 1.13−1.77) and 1.45 times (95% CI: 1.09−1.93) higher, respectively, in cancer patients with HIV. Among PWH, higher ESAS scores were associated with mortality (p-value = 0.02). This is the first demonstration of uniquely poor PROs in PWH and cancer and suggests that patient symptom monitoring to improve clinical endpoints deserves further study.
Keywords: HIV; HIV and cancer survivorship; patient-reported outcomes.