DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Unsettling re-emergence of 'gay cancer'

**spiveker** · 10-12-2007, 08:27 PM

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco doctors have reported a cluster among gay men of unusual cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, the cancer-like skin disease whose disfiguring purple lesions were a terrifying signature of a bygone era of the AIDS epidemic.

All 15 patients under treatment for the condition are long-term survivors of HIV whose infections are firmly under control with antiviral drugs. So far, none of them appears to be in any danger.

The new cases of Kaposi's sarcoma have not been aggressive, invasive or lethal - the way the disease behaved in patients with uncontrolled HIV during the 1980s.

Still, the lesions are unsightly, difficult to treat and raise uncomfortable questions about what weaknesses might lurk in the immune systems of thousands of aging survivors of the epidemic.

The re-emergence of this classic AIDS illness in these outwardly healthy patients is an unsettling echo from the past and a warning that this 26-year-old plague still has the capacity to surprise.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/1...

10-12-2007, 08:27 PM	#1
spiveker Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 397 Senior Member	Unsettling re-emergence of 'gay cancer' Source: San Francisco Chronicle San Francisco doctors have reported a cluster among gay men of unusual cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, the cancer-like skin disease whose disfiguring purple lesions were a terrifying signature of a bygone era of the AIDS epidemic. All 15 patients under treatment for the condition are long-term survivors of HIV whose infections are firmly under control with antiviral drugs. So far, none of them appears to be in any danger. The new cases of Kaposi's sarcoma have not been aggressive, invasive or lethal - the way the disease behaved in patients with uncontrolled HIV during the 1980s. Still, the lesions are unsightly, difficult to treat and raise uncomfortable questions about what weaknesses might lurk in the immune systems of thousands of aging survivors of the epidemic. The re-emergence of this classic AIDS illness in these outwardly healthy patients is an unsettling echo from the past and a warning that this 26-year-old plague still has the capacity to surprise. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/1...
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