Spanish Study Links HIV to Greater Hospital Burden After Cancer Diagnosis

A nationwide observational study in Clinical Infectious Diseases examined cancer-related hospital use among people with and without HIV in Spain. Researchers used the Spanish National Health System’s mandatory hospital discharge database, covering all adult admissions from 1997 to 2023. Among 115,171,334 admissions, 626,066 involved people with HIV. Outcomes included post-index cancer-admission hospital trajectories, healthcare use, in-hospital mortality, and years of life lost.

Cancer-related hospitalizations increased in both groups, more steeply among people with HIV, reaching nearly one in five of their hospitalizations in 2020–2023. At first cancer admission, people with HIV were younger, had greater comorbidity, and more often had metastatic disease. They subsequently had more frequent rehospitalizations, shorter time to readmission, longer cumulative stays, and higher hospitalization costs. Complex hospital trajectories occurred in 29.6% versus 18.0% (adjusted odds ratio 1.38, 95% CI 1.34–1.41). In-hospital mortality was 12.1% versus 8.9% (adjusted odds ratio 1.83, 95% CI 1.79–1.87), while reported years of life lost were 35 versus 18.

These findings highlight the hospital burden associated with cancer among people with HIV. The observational, admission-based analysis cannot establish causality, and admission counts do not represent unique patients. Only the abstract was available; definitions of the trajectory composite, years-of-life-lost calculations, and adjustment variables require full-text review.