The cancer rate of Americans diagnosed with HIV is an estimated 50 percent greater than that of the HIV-negative population, Reuters Health reports. Publishing their findings in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, researchers analyzed data from six states from the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study, as well as from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program in order to come up with this estimate.

In 2010, an estimated 7,760 cancers occurred among the nearly 900,000 HIV-diagnosed Americans. Out of those cancers, 3,920, or 50 percent, exceeded the figure expected of them if they did not have HIV. The most common cancers occurring at disproportionate rates among people with HIV were non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (with 1,440 more cancers than what is expected in an HIV-negative group, for an excess rate of 88 percent), Kaposi’s sarcoma (910 more cancers, 100 percent excess), anal cancer (740 more cancers, 97 percent excess), and lung cancer (440 more cancers, 52 percent excess).

The proportion of AIDS-defining cancers—such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and cervical cancer—that were in excess of what is expected among HIV-negative people declined as individuals got older and more time had passed since they were diagnosed with AIDS (in the event of such a diagnosis).

Of the excess cases of anal cancer, 83 percent occurred among men who have sex with men (MSM) and 71 percent occurred among those who had lived at least five years since an AIDS diagnosis. Among injection drug users, 22 percent of their excess cancer cases were lung cancer and 16 percent were liver cancer.