As people live longer with the virus, they are becoming far more likely than the rest of the population to develop cancers that were not previously associated with AIDS, research has found. “We’re seeing high rates of head and neck cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, liver cancer and anal cancer,” said John F. Deeken, the director of head and neck oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center.

Researchers have detected the trend for years in separate studies around the world, but their findings were not widely publicized or known. On Thursday, the American Society of Clinical Oncology released an abstract by Deeken outlining a clinical trial by the AIDS Malignancy Consortium to study the effects and safety of a chemotherapy drug to treat non-AIDS-related cancers in HIV-positive patients. Read More→