Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Endosc. Sep 16, 2023; 15(9): 545-552
Published online Sep 16, 2023. doi: 10.4253/wjge.v15.i9.545
Human immunodeficiency virus patients with low CD4 counts are more likely to have precancerous polyps identified during index colonoscopy
Michelle Likhtshteyn, Evan Marzouk, Fray M Arroyo-Mercado, Gurasees Chawla, Sabrina Rosengarten, Renata Lerer, Hector Ojeda-Martinez, Savanna Thor
Michelle Likhtshteyn, Gurasees Chawla, Savanna Thor, Department of Gastroenterology, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, Brooklyn, NY 11203, United States
Evan Marzouk, Department of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, IL 01199, United States
Fray M Arroyo-Mercado, Department of Gastroenterology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87106, United States
Sabrina Rosengarten, Department of Emergency Medicine, New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, Queens, NY 11355, United States
Renata Lerer, Department of Gastroenterology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, United States
Hector Ojeda-Martinez, Department of Infectious Disease, Nuvance Health-Vassar Brothers Medical Center, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601, United States
Author contributions: Likhtshteyn M, Marzouk E, Arroyo-Mercado FM, Chawla G, and Lerer R contributed equally to this work; Thor S was the research mentor specializing in gastroenterology; Ojeda-Martinez H was the research mentor specializing in Infectious Diseases and HIV; Rosengarten S performed statistical analysis; Likhtshteyn M, Marzouk M, Rosengarten S, and Thor S wrote the manuscript; Likhtshteyn M and Thor S were responsible for revising the manuscript; All authors read and approved the final version.
Institutional review board statement: The project, “Adenoma prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes on screening colonoscopy in patients with HIV in an Urban Safety Net Hospital and Urban University Hospital” was approved by SUNY Downstate Health Sciences IRB on October 13, 2020, No. 1306045.
Informed consent statement: All study participants or their legal guardian provided informed written consent about personal and medical data collection prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare having no conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Please contact mlikhtsh@gmail.com for all statistical requests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Michelle Likhtshteyn, MD, Academic Fellow, Doctor, Department of Gastroenterology, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, 450 Clarkson Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11203, United States. mlikhtsh@gmail.com
Received: March 22, 2023
Peer-review started: March 22, 2023
First decision: April 28, 2023
Revised: May 16, 2023
Accepted: August 21, 2023
Article in press: August 21, 2023
Published online: September 16, 2023
Core Tip

Core Tip: Aging human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) patients are at a higher risk for developing non-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome defining malignancies. We investigated the factors associated with the development of precancerous polyps on index colonoscopy and whether HIV disease state might influence precancerous polyps. We divided patients into two groups based on their viral load and CD4 count. We retrieved colonoscopy results, patient demographics, and relevant HIV data from the electronic medical record. We determined that patients with low CD4 counts were more likely to have precancerous polyps on their index colonoscopy. We found an increased risk of precancerous polyps in patients taking non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors.