Survival patterns of the first 500 patients with aids in san francisco

AIDS has become a leading cause of premature mortality in both New York City and San Francisco [1], Previous studies have reported that patients initially diagnosed with Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) alone have tended to live longer past diagnosis than have patients with opportunistic infections (OIs), primarily Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP), at initial diagnosis [2-4], but this longer survival has still been quite short. In this study we report the survival experience through 1985 of the 505 adult San Francisco residents — nearly all homosexual men — diagnosed with AIDS through May 1984. Survival varied significantly by initial AIDS diagnosis, age at diagnosis, and for patients <40 y of age with initial diagnoses of KS alone, by date of diagnosis.