Histological subtypes of Hodgkin's disease in the setting of HIV infection

The relative incidence of Hodgkin's disease (HD) has been found to have increased approximately seven times in HIV-infected patients. We analyzed the histological distribution of HIV-associated HD with the aim of clarifying purported difference(s) from de novo HD. References on HIV/AIDS-associated HD were retrieved from the most complete databases. Nineteen articles were the subject of our analysis. Seventeen of them reported data on the histological type of HIV/AIDS-associated HD patients; the route of infection and age of the patients were also considered when available. According to the Peto's methodology, histological types were compared with those from two large studies in the United States on de novo HD: 3,245 cases from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) and 1,140 from Stanford University. The analysis of the two groups showed statistically significant differences (p