Increasing incidence and importance of HIV/AIDS and gonorrhea among men aged >/= 50 years in the US in the era of erectile dysfunction therapy.

OBJECTIVE: With the advent of effective pharmacotherapy for erectile dysfunction, the risk of sexually transmitted diseases is a possible consequence, especially in the older population. We wanted to review the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in the older population in an attempt to correlate this with the advent of these new drugs.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: Publicly available information on the incidence of HIV, AIDS and gonorrhea was retrieved from the websites of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the State of Florida Department of Health, the Senior HIV Intervention Project and the National Association on HIV Over Fifty. National case incidences of HIV and AIDS in men between 1996 and 2000 were examined for trends. National and Florida state trends were compared and, in Florida, Palm Beach, Broward and Dade counties in particular were selected because of their traditionally large retiree population. In addition, the national and Florida state incidences of gonorrheal infection were examined for trends. Statistics on national sildenafil (Viagra) prescriptions were obtained via a personal communication with a regional healthcare representative from Pfizer.
RESULTS: According to the CDC, at the end of 1998 >10% of new AIDS cases nationally were in individuals aged >50 years. In the late 1990s, new AIDS cases rose faster in middle-aged and older adults than in people aged >40 years. Many of the newly diagnosed cases of AIDS may have contracted HIV before the age of 50 years; however, many individuals are newly becoming infected above the age of 50 years. Of the reported AIDS cases in 1996 in individuals aged >/= 50 years, 48% were aged 50-54 years, 26% were aged 55-59 years, 14% were aged 60-64 years and 12% were aged >/= 65 years; 84% of these cases were male, and blacks accounted for the greatest proportion of cases (43%). In the US, 7.5 million prescriptions for sildenafil were written in 1998, 9.5 million in 1999, 12 million in 2000 and 15.5 million in 2001. The age breakdown for these prescriptions was as follows: 40-49 years, 23%; 50-59 years, 35%; and 60-69 years, 25%.
CONCLUSIONS: The past decade saw rises in heterosexual transmission of HIV and i.v. drug use, especially in the population aged >50 years. The CDC reports that the incidence of new HIV infection is stabilizing in men aged 30-39 years and even falling in men aged 20-29 years. Gonorrhea is well known to increase infectivity for HIV and other STDs. Although the rates of gonorrhea infection fell throughout the early 1990s, they increased by 9% between 1997 and 1999. The number of sildenafil prescriptions has increased by almost 80% over the last few years. Although there may be multiple contributory factors for these findings, to our knowledge this is the first paper in the urologic literature to examine such trends in the older male population, especially in the light of newly available medications for erectile dysfunction.