Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Burden of HIV/Cervical Cancer Comorbidity and Related In-hospital Mortality in the USA

Objective The purpose of this study was to determine whether cervical cancer is a risk factor for early mortality among women with HIV and whether racial/ethnic disparity predicted in-hospital death among women living with HIV and diagnosed with cervical cancer. Methods We conducted a population-based study using the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database comprising hospitalized HIV-positive women with or without cervical cancer diagnosis, from 2003 through 2015. We compared trends in the rates of cervical cancer, in-hospital death, and years of potential life lost (YPLL) by race/ethnicity. Results We identified 2,613,696 women with HIV, and among them, 5398 had cervical cancer. The prevalence of cervical cancer (per 10,000) was 9.3 for NH-Whites, 30.9 among NH-Blacks, and 30.2 for Hispanics. Rates of cervical cancer over time diminished significantly only among NH-Whites (average annual percent change (AAPC), − 5.8 (− 9.7, − 1.8)), and YPLL in women with cervical cancer decreased significantly only in NH-Whites (AAPC, − 6.2 (− 10.1, − 2.0)). Cervical cancer was associated with increased odds of in-hospital death overall (OR 2.24 (1.59–3.15)) and among NH-Blacks (OR 2.03 (1.30–3.18)) only. Conclusions NH-Blacks and Hispanics with HIV remain at increased risk for concurrent diagnosis of cervical cancer compared with NH-Whites. Moreover, NH-Black women with HIV and cervical cancer are at greatest risk for in-hospital death. The findings emphasize the need for a more robust prevention strategy among minority women to reduce the high burden of HIV/cervical cancer and related mortality.