07 May DDW25: More Older White and Hispanic Women Developing Anal Cancer

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dr. Robinson

Ashley Robinson, MD, lead author
Second-year internal medicine resident
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: Briefly, anal cancer makes up around 1% of gastrointestinal cancers and more than 90% of all anal cancers are caused by chronic human papillomavirus or HPV infections.

In previous research, it has been noted that women over the age of 65 have rates that were increasing more than other groups and myself along with my colleagues and the principal investigator of this project, Dr. Eli Ehrenpreis, wanted to further characterize these findings, looking into more specific details of these previously noted trends. Using data from a public database ran by the National Cancer Institute called the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program, also known as SEER, and their statistical analysis software, SEER*Stat, we analyzed anal cancer incidence trends, looking at differences between sex, age, and ethnicity in order to further identify specific groups that have more rapidly increasing rates than others.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response:   In our research, we found that overall women have a higher incidence than men and that was most pronounced in White women over the age of 65, followed by Hispanic women in the same age range.

MedicalResearch.com: Should these higher risks groups receive the HPV vaccine?

Response: The current guidelines recommend HPV vaccination starting at age 9 up to 26 and more recently recommended for adults up to age 45 with shared decision making with their physician. Since anal cancer is most commonly caused by chronic HPV infection, meaning an infection that persists for many years, it would be preferable for adults within the current guideline range to receive the vaccine series before they develop these chronic infections. More research would need to be done to determine if patients over the current guideline age range would benefit from vaccination but for now, encouraging patients who are eligible to receive this vaccine would hopefully help slow or reverse the current incidence trends we are seeing in older adults.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: I think the most important takeaway from this project is that there are populations outside of the known high-risk patient populations that have increasingly high rates of anal cancer. Within the two groups we found to have the highest incidence, White and Hispanic women over 65, we are seeing the most rapid increases with an estimated doubling time of around 16-17 years, meaning that in that time, we expect the rate to go from around 11 per 100,000 to 22 per 100,000 if the trends continue in the same direction they have been, which is a significant increase. 

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a results of this study?

Response: These findings create an opening for further investigation into screening patients who fall into these groups of older women. There are some guidelines for anal cancer screening in certain at-risk patient populations such as those with HIV, solid organ transplant patients or women who have a history of vulvar or vaginal cancer, but no current guidelines for those who fall outside those specific categories. These findings may suggest that women, especially White and Hispanic women over the age of 65, may also benefit from anal cancer screening.

There are no relevant disclosures.

Citation:

Robinson will present data from the study, “Analysis of temporal trends in anal cancer incidence by sex, age, and ethnicity,” Digestive Disease Week^® (DDW) 2025 abstract 76, May 3 2025

More information:

Kang YJ, Smith M, Canfell K. Anal cancer in high-income countries: Increasing burden of disease. PLoS One. 2018;13(10):e0205105. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0205105
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6195278/

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Last Updated on May 7, 2025 by Marie Benz MD FAAD