A Single-Institutional Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Related Bladder Cancer
Authors: Zhang Mengmeng , Zhang Yanyan , Zhu Zhiqiang , Zhang Yu 
Published: July 2021

Purpose: We wished to investigate the clinical characteristics, treatments for tumor, pathology and outcomes of bladder cancer patients with HIV-infected.Patients and methods: We identified 10 cases of bladder cancer with HIV-infected from 2015 to 2020.We retrospectively investigated the clinical characteristics of the cases including demographic information, clinical presentation, TNM stage and so on. We investigated treatments for tumor, pathology, outcomes and HIV-relevant parameters during patients’ hospitalization course as well. Results: In our study, it was astonished to find that bladder cancer patients with HIV-infected were males at the median age of 51 years old, and no females were diagnosed on the contrary. Nine (90%)patients presented with painless gross hematuria, while one patient with incidental findings on ultrasonic examination. Six(60%) patients co-infected with another kind of infectious disease, four with syphilis, and two with HBV respectively. The median CD4+ T-lymphocyte cell count was 493/ul withthin 2 weeks prior to the diagnosis bladder cancer. Cystoscope examination manifested that the lesions were located in the trigonum of the bladder in four(40%)patients. All patients underwent surgeries successfully, six underwent transurethral resection of bladder tumor(TURBT),two of whom relapsed once, and one underwent TURBT twice due to recurrence and then RC and urethrectomy because of urethral invasion. All non muscle-invasive bladder cancer(NMIBC)patients received intravesical chemotherapy with pirarubicin 30mg for at least half year conventionally, and only one patient occurred mild adverse reaction of irritative symptoms of bladder. Pathologic analysis documented that all patients(100%) had transitional cell carcinoma(TCC). Tumor grade classification showed that three cases were identified with low grade TCC, and six cases with high grade or invasive TCC, two of whom occurred recurrence for once or twice respectively. One patient was identified with low grade TCC of primary tumor and high grade TCC of recurrent focal(Figure 2).Five cases(50%) were ascertained as (NMIBC) with pT1N0M0, while the rest five patients(50%) were muscle-invasive bladder cancer(MIBC) with at least pT2N0M0. During the median follow-up of 56 months (range from 5 months to 68 months) six cases(five were MIBC patients )died due to distant metastases. No patients acceptted adjuvent immunotherapy mainly due to the role of PD-1+ T cells in HIV transcription in treated aviremic individuals, concerns of unknown adverse effects and economic factors.Conclusions: It seemed like that bladder caner patients had higher tumor stage and more aggressive pathology. we did not find any evidence on the relationship between immunodeficiency and cancer progression because of relatively stable HIV status of this crew in our study. MIBC patients with HIV-infected really have worse outcomes, and more attention is warranted to pay to this special population in this situation when they present with hematuria extraordinarily.