New research is emerging that suggests a link between infection-related diseases and risk of cancer, according to findings presented here at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010.

“Chronic or recurrent inflammatory conditions appear to contribute to the development of a diverse array of cancers, and tackling these conditions early could be an avenue for prevention,” said William G. Nelson V, M.D., Ph.D., professor and director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Patients with AIDS are 100 times more likely to get non-Hodgkin lymphoma than the general population. Researchers believe that circulating cytokine levels may be playing a role in this increased risk

“Although medicines that fight AIDS are becoming more effective, cancer remains a real risk among these patients. We need to keep working toward understanding the mechanisms that predispose people to certain cancers,” said Charles S. Rabkin, M.D., senior investigator at the National Cancer Institute.

Cancer was one of the first clues that led researchers to identify AIDS in the early 1980s. Since then, researchers have been working to discover why patients with AIDS are at greater risk of cancer than the general population