The impact of HIV on the treatment of anal cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The impact of HIV on the treatment of anal cancer: a matched cohort study
IRAS ID
208023
Contact name
Andrew Renehan
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Manchester
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
RDMP4886, University of Manchester Data Management Plan
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 17 days
Research summary
Anal cancer is a rare type of tumour. Patients with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV positive) have a higher risk of developing anal cancer than the general population. Primary treatment for anal cancer involves a combination of cancer treatment using chemical substances (chemotherapy) and x-ray treatment (radiotherapy) over 30 days. HIV positive patients traditionally were thought to tolerate anal cancer treatment worse than HIV negative patients. This was more so before the introduction of effective HIV treatment: highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) before 1996. Since the introduction of HAART, patients with HIV are living longer. The number of of anal cancer cases per year has also been rising since 1996 in this population. Some studies post-1996, have shown that patients with HIV tolerate and respond as well as HIV negative patients to primary treatment. Other studies show that HIV positive do worse than HIV negative patients. These studies do not use similar groups of HIV positive and HIV negative patients, therefore limiting the ability to make a fair comparison.
In our study we will use a statistical method called propensity score matching to select patients from the HIV negative group that have similar characteristics (e.g. age, sex and tumour staging) to the HIV positive patients. We will then compare the overall survival (time from start of treatment to death) and local recurrence (time from completion of treatment to the return of the tumour) in the two patient groups.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge South Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EE/0265
Date of REC Opinion
14 Jun 2016
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion