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Smokers with HIV which causes Aids at increased risk to die from lung cancer

Smoking and having HIV could speed up development of lung cancer

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Customers enjoy smoking tobacco and cigarettes while drinking tea at the 100 year old Guanyin Pavilion teahouse in Pengzhen of Sichuan province, China. A study showed that people with the HIV which causes AIDs are far more likely to die of lung cancer. Photo: EPA

People who are infected with human immunodeficiency virus and who smoke are far more likely to die from lung cancer than HIV, researchers said on Monday.

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“Having HIV and using tobacco may together accelerate the development of lung cancer,” warned the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine.

Smoking reduces life expectancy among people living with HIV – and undergoing antiretroviral therapy to keep their disease at bay – more than HIV itself, it added.

The findings are of particular concern because smoking is so common among people with HIV.

The prevalence of smokers among the population of people with HIV is 40 per cent, about twice the rest of the US population.

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“Smoking and HIV are a particularly bad combination when it comes to lung cancer,” said lead author Krishna Reddy, a doctor at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

“Smoking rates are extraordinarily high among people with HIV, and both smoking and HIV increase the risk of lung cancer.”

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