Authors’ reply

We would like to thank Dr Spartalis et al for their interest in our article [1]. It has been shown that human immunodeficiency virus and hepatitis C virus (HIV-HCV) coinfection is associated with shorter survival in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) [2]. In addition, the presence of hepatitis B or C is associated with an increased risk of HCC in HIV patients [3]. We thus agree that HIV-HCV coinfection is associated with a worse prognosis in patients with HCC. However, since our cohort did not include any patients with HIV infection we were not able to study this group.