Healthcare utilization and outcomes in HIV versus non-HIV patients with hepatocellular cancer: A nationwide analysis.
Authors: Jennifer C Asotibe, Ikechukwu Achebe, Syed Ali Amir Sherazi, Muhammad-Sheharyar Warraich, Bashar Attar, Shweta Gupta, Michael Russell Mullane
Journal: Journal of Clinical Oncology (2021)

e16189 Background: Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) remains a leading cause of cancer related mortality and has a 5-year survival after diagnosis of under 20%. HIV-HCC patients are reported to present with advanced disease and shorter survival compared to non-HIV-HCC patients. HIV has not been known to have a direct causal relationship with HCC but chronic immunosuppression, direct effects of HIV virus on liver parenchyma and use of hepatotoxic antiretroviral medications are thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of HCC (Curr Opin HIV AIDS 2017;12:20-25). We studied differences in outcomes and healthcare utilization between HIV and non-HIV-HCC from a national database. Methods: Healthcare Cost Utilization Project (HCUP) National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database was queried to identify all HIV and non-HIV HCC admissions between 2016-2018. The groups were compared for socio-demographic differences, inpatient mortality, length of stay (LOS) and total hospital charges (THC). Secondary outcomes studied were rates of acute kidney injury (AKI), encephalopathy, anemia, upper GI Bleed (LGIB), tumor lysis (TLS), portal hypertension (PH), sepsis, septic shock (SS), neutropenia and protein energy malnutrition (PEM). Statistics were performed using the t-test, univariate and multivariate logistic regression. Results: A total of 845 HIV-HCC and 88,805 non-HIV-HCC inpatient admissions were identified. Compared to non-HIV-HCC, HIV-HCC patients were significantly younger (mean age 59.3 vs 64.7 years, p &lt; 0.0001) with fewer over 65 years old (21.9 % vs 47.4%, p &lt; 0.0001), more males (87.6% vs 74.3%, p &lt; 0.0002) and African American (AA) (44.8% VS 15.9%, p &lt; 0.0001). HIV-HCC cohort were more likely to be treated at a teaching hospital (89% vs 81%, p &lt; 0.035) and had higher comorbidity burden as defined by a high Charlson comorbidity index (p &lt; 0.01) compared to non-HIV-HCC. Odds of adjusted inpatient mortality (aOR= 0.47, CI = 0.27–0.82, p = 0.007) was significantly lower in HIV-HCC with similar LOS (6.5 vs 6.1 days, p = NS) and THC ($85,930 vs $84,592, p = NS) compared to non-HIV-HCC. While rates of neutropenia (2.96% vs 0.62%, p &lt; 0.001) and PEM (26.0% vs 16.3%, p = 0.01) were higher in HIV-HCC, rates of other secondary outcomes were similar compared to non-HIV cohort. Conclusions: HIV-HCC patients are younger, AA, and men with significantly lower inpatient mortality and similar healthcare utilization compared to non-HIV-HCC, despite higher rates of PEM and neutropenia, possibly reflecting advancements in HIV-HCC treatment, and contributed to by younger age and treatment at teaching hospitals. Further studies are needed to evaluate and assess the effect of co-infection with hepatitis on HIV-HCC outcomes which was not evaluated in present study and investigate interventions aimed to reduce complications like PEM and neutropenia to further improve outcomes.