TOPLINE:

Patients with HIV infection who received a liver transplant were not more likely to develop new cancers than recipients without HIV infection over a long-term follow-up.

METHODOLOGY:

• This prospective cohort study assessed whether HIV infection increases the risk for new cancers after liver transplantation across 22 centres in Spain.
• The study involved 1088 patients (mean age, 48.4 years; 78.7% men) who underwent liver transplantation between 2002 and 2012.
• Of these, 272 recipients with HIV infection were matched to 816 recipients without HIV infection on the basis of centre, calendar year of transplant, age, sex, underlying liver disease, and presence of hepatocellular carcinoma.
• The outcome was the diagnosis of new cancers, excluding hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence and non‑melanoma skin cancer, after transplantation; the overall median follow-up duration was 67.8 months.

TAKEAWAY:

• New cancers developed in 5.9% of patients with HIV infection and 7.5% of those without, with no statistically significant difference.
• Probabilities of developing new cancers at 5 and 10 years after transplant were similar between the two groups; the most common new cancers seen were non-Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 19), lung cancer (n = 14), and head and neck cancer (n = 14).
• Rates of survival after the diagnosis of cancer did not differ meaningfully by HIV status.

IN PRACTICE:

"In conclusion, in our study, carefully selected LT [liver transplant] recipients with HIV infection do not face an increased risk of cancer at long term when compared with HIV-negative patients," the authors wrote.

SOURCE:

This study was led by Jose I. Herrero, Clínica Universidad de Navarra, IdiSNA, Pamplona, Spain. It was published online on April 16, 2026, in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

LIMITATIONS:

Patients without HIV infection were older despite matching. The study lacked data on alcohol use and smoking, and information on the intensity of immunosuppression was limited.

DISCLOSURES:

This study was supported by grants from Fundación para la Investigación y la Prevención del Sida en España and the Ministerio de Sanidad, Consumo y Bienestar Social, Madrid, Spain. One author disclosed receiving consulting honoraria and/or research grants from multiple pharmaceutical companies outside the submitted work.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.