Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Related Lymphomas

The acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) was first described in 1981, in individuals with certain opportunistic infections (OI), Kaposi sarcoma, and central nervous system (CNS) lymphomas. Three years later the clinical spectrum of non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL) in the populations at risk of AIDS was first described [1, 2]. Since the introduction of combined antiretroviral therapy (cART) in the mid-1990s, the incidence of lymphomas, which formerly accounted for 2–3% of newly diagnosed AIDS patients, has decreased and outcomes have improved [3]. Simultaneously, a shift toward histologies that occur at higher CD4 lymphocyte counts, such as Burkitt lymphoma and classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL), was observed [4–6]. The increasing proportion of long-term survivors of lymphoma has raised the possibility of developing certain non-AIDS-defining solid tumors, especially those related to the lifestyle and viral infections in HIV-infected patients.