Certain Cancers More Common Among HIV Patients Than Non-HIV Patients

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that non-AIDS-defining malignancies such as anal and lung cancer have become more prevalent among HIV-infected patients than non-HIV patients since the introduction of anti-retroviral therapies in the mid-1990s.

AIDS patients with suppressed immune systems are at higher risk for so-called AIDS-defining malignancies - cancers such as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Kaposi's sarcoma and cervical carcinoma. Some researchers have speculated, however, that HIV patients are diagnosed with more non-AIDS-defining malignancies simply because anti-retroviral drugs now used enable them to live longer, but the results of the UT Southwestern study suggest that other factors may be at work.