AEGiS-AP: 2 Fatal Diseases Focus of Inquiry

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1981. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

2 Fatal Diseases Focus of Inquiry

The Associated Press - August 29, 1981

ATLANTA -- Two rare diseases have struck more than 100 homosexual men in the United States in recent months, killing almost half of them, and a medical study group has been formed to find out why, the national Centers for Disease Control said today.

The disease control agency reported in June and July that 26 cases of Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare form of skin cancer, and 15 cases of pneumocystis, a form of pneumonia caused by a parasitic organism, had been found in homosexual men since January 1980.

Since the midyear reports, new reports have brought the totals to 53 cases of pneumocystis, 47 of Kaposi's sarcoma, and 7 cases in which patients had both diseases. One additional case was that of a woman who contracted pneumocystis. Of the patients whose sexual preference was known, 94 percent were homosexual men.

The new cases were reported by doctors who diagnosed them after reading the initial report, said Dr. Harold Jaffe, a member of the study group.

Disease Rarely Fatal to Elderly

Kaposi's sarcoma is a rare disease that characteristically strikes elderly men and is seldom fatal. But the majority of homosexual patients were young men and 17 percent of those who were stricken have died so far. The disease agency says that of every three million Americans, two persons could be expected to get that form of cancer.

Almost 60 percent of the pneumocystis patients died. In some cases, pneumocystis preceded the cancer. The two diseases sometimes occurred separately and sometimes in combination. The disease center has no statistics on the incidence of pneumocystis in the general population, but said that its occurrence was extremely unusual, although it has become slightly more common among cancer patients whose immunities are suppressed by medication.

Nobody knows why homosexual men get the disease, Dr. Jaffe said. There may be a link to some previous infection, or the victims may have a problem with their immune systems. The diseases may be linked to their sexual lifestyle, drug use or some other environmental cause, although no evidence of those connections has been found.

The study group of 20 experts from the disease control center's cancer, viral, parasitic and venereal disease branches is trying to determine if the problem is limited to homosexual men and, if so, why they seem to be catching the diseases at unusually high rates, Dr. Jaffe said.
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