摘要：

Scarlattis comment regarding the rarity of malignancies associated with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in children is contradicted by 15 years of records at this authors oncology clinic. Beginning with a patient who was diagnosed with acute promyelocytic leukemia in 1990 14 children were diagnosed with such diseases 12 in the last 15 months by July 1996. Excluding those with solid or brain tumors the patients included: 1) 4 with Kaposis sarcoma; 2) 2 with acute leukemia; 3) 2 with Burkitts lymphoma; 4) 2 with T-cell lymphoma; 5) 3 with mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma with parotid involvement; and 6) 1 with an undifferentiated abdominal tumor. Pediatric MALT lymphoma with parotid involvement has not been described previously and the child of 14 months with the disease is the youngest on record. Only 2 non-HIV Kaposis sarcoma cases have been recorded at the clinic in the last 20 years. The mean age of HIV-negative patients at the clinic is 72 months while the mean age of these children is 25 months. 1/4 of all Black children with malignant diseases seen at the clinic during this time were in this group of patients. The first diagnoses of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in South African children occurred in 1989 at the King Edward VIII Hospital where the current antenatal HIV prevalence in Black mothers is 21-24%; assuming a vertical transmission rate of about 34% about 8% of Black infants in KwaZulu Natal are infected with HIV.

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