Bladder carcinoma and HIV

PubMed, the Internet portal of biomedical and life sciences literature, indexed an interesting article, entitled “Bladder carcinoma and HIV infection during the highly active antiretroviral therapy era: A rare, but intriguing association.” (Scand J Infect Dis. 2006 Jul;38(6):566-570 ). Authors are Manfredi R, Sabbatini S, Calza l et al., from the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, University of Bologna ‘Alma Mater Studiorum’, Italy. Two very rare case reports of bladder transitional cell carcinoma associated with HIV infection in patients treated with combined antiretroviral therapy are described, and discussed on the ground of the most relevant and updated literature resources. In those two patients, micro- or macro- haematuria was the clue for in-depth diagnosis and prompt treatment, which was limited to multiple local interventions in 1 case, but finally required a radical cystectomy in the second patient. No relationship was found with the very favourable underlying HIV-related virological and immunological status, and the present 8-12-month follow-up did not show disease relapses. To access the full abstract of the article, click here.