Many Cancers Are More Common in People with HIV

Compared with the general population, people with HIV infections have a higher risk not only for AIDS-defining cancers but also for several non–AIDS-defining ones (JW Aug 7 2007). In a new study, investigators describe the incidence of cancer from 1992 through 2003 in two large cohorts of HIV-positive patients, compared with the general U.S. population.

Of the 3550 cancers that developed in the cohort, 20% were not AIDS-defining types, and several of these occurred more often than in the general population: Hodgkin lymphomas, leukemias, melanomas, and cancers of the anus, vagina, liver, lungs, oropharynx, kidneys, and colon or rectum.