Abstract
Context:
Since the introduction of highly active anti-retroviral regimen for human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection, a significant increase in the incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma has been reported in patients already chronically infected with hepatitis B virus and then given this form of regimen for their retroviral infection.Evidence Acquisition:
This phenomenon was initially attributed to the far more prolonged survival of those patients who received this new regimen, which provided sufficient time, allowing hepatitis B virus-induced hepatocellular carcinoma to develop.Results:
The current belief is that the increased incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma is because of co-infection with the two viruses, one known to be hepatocarcinogenic and the other suspected to increase the carcinogenic potential of the other. Because both hepatitis B virus and human immunodeficiency virus -1 are endemic in the Black population of sub-Saharan Africa and are transmitted in similar ways, as many as 20% of this population are co-infected with the two viruses. In this way, the already high risk of Black African patients developing hepatitis B virus-induced hepatocellular carcinoma is further increased.Conclusions:
The pathogenetic mechanism or mechanisms involved in the carcinogenic interaction between the hepatitis B virus and the human immunodeficiency virus-1 in sub-Saharan Black Africans and other populations co-infected with these viruses have yet to be determined.Keywords
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© 2012, Author(s). This open-access article is available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which allows for unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is properly cited.