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Statistics About Kaposi’s Sarcoma

statistics

Some people use statistics to try to figure out their chances of getting cancer or of being cured. Statistics show what happens with large groups of people. Because no two people are alike, statistics can’t be used to know or predict what will happen to a particular person.

Until the early 1980s, Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) was a rare disease. It occurred most often in older Mediterranean men, African men, or organ transplant patients. The spread of AIDS has made KS more common. The cancer is now found more often in gay men in the United States and Western Europe than in other groups.

These statistics from the American Cancer Society about Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS).

  • About seven out of a million people in the general U.S. population get KS each year.

  • In the past, one in two men who had sex with men and who had AIDS got KS. That number has now dropped. The rate of KS is about 1/7 its peak in the mid-1990s.

  • Organ transplant patients can also get KS. About one out of 200 people who have transplants in the U.S. gets KS.

Online Medical Reviewer: Alteri, Rick MD
Online Medical Reviewer: Dezube, Bruce MD
Online Medical Reviewer: Foster, Sara RN MPH
Online Medical Reviewer: Gallagher, Laura E. MSN, RN, CNS, CRC
Last Annual Review Date: 9/12/2009