RARE DISEASERESEARCH ATLAS

ORPHA:90081

AIDS wasting syndrome

high confidenceDisorder

Publications

793,136

100th percentile

Trials

11

Interventional, condition-specific

Researchers

884

Distinct authors in sample

Gene link

Readiness

4/6

Stages with a signal

Clinical definition (Orphanet)

A rare condition associated with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and characterized by unwanted weight loss (involving both fat and muscle) of more than ten percent of body weight, with either diarrhea or weakness and fever which have lasted at least 30 days and are not related to an infection.

How rare: 1-5 / 10 000 — about one to five people per ten thousand (still uncommon, but less ultra-rare).

Orphanet entry

Cross-references

Joined from Mondo / Orphanet. MeSH labels may enter searches; UMLS / OMIM / NCIT are stored for reference.

Research stages

Trial readiness signals

Where this condition sits on an open-data research pipeline — not how close a treatment is, and not medical advice. Empty stages often mean “not in these databases under this Mondo ID,” not “impossible.”

4/6 stages with a signal

An interventional trial matched this condition name on ClinicalTrials.gov — see trials below.

  1. Gene identifiedNot found

    No GenCC disease–gene assertion in this build

  2. LiteraturePresent

    793,136 matched papers (396,048 in last 10 years) Source

  3. Phenotype characterisedPresent

    9 HPO annotations (e.g. Cachexia; Abnormal gonadotropin-releasing hormone concentration; Weight loss) Source

  4. Animal modelNot found

    No Alliance genotype “model of” associations via Monarch for these Mondo IDs

  5. Orphan designationPresent

    1 FDA designation (1 FDA orphan-indication approval) — e.g. Somatropin Source

  6. Interventional trialPresent

    11 matched on ClinicalTrials.gov

Biology

Genes and phenotypes

Gene–disease validity from GenCC, plus phenotypes and animal models joined from Monarch Initiative via Mondo ID — not a clinical diagnosis aid.

Do we know what causes it?

Not yet — the cause hasn't been pinned down in GenCC.

No strong gene–disease assertion joined for this Orphanet entity.

Phenotypes (Monarch / HPO)

9

Associated phenotypes · MONDO:0005797

  • Cachexia
  • Abnormal gonadotropin-releasing hormone concentration
  • Weight loss
  • Malabsorption
  • Anorexia

Showing 5 of 9 — open Monarch for the full list.

Animal models (Monarch / Alliance)

None returned for this Mondo ID. Empty here is not proof that no model organism work exists under another name or gene.

Monarch fetch 2026-07-29

Therapies

Designations, candidates, and chemicals

FDA OOPD and EMA orphan designations, Open Targets clinical candidates, and CTD chemical associations via MyDisease.info. These never change the interventional-trial headline.

Orphan designation (FDA · EMA)

1

Designation · 1 with FDA orphan-indication approval

  • FDA SomatropinCachexia associated with AIDS · 1993-02-12 · Not FDA Approved for Orphan Indication

Sources: FDA OOPD · EMA orphan designations

Open Targets candidates

3

Drugs / clinical candidates · MONDO_0005797

CTD chemicals (MyDisease.info)

4 associated chemicals · 96 pathways. Therapeutic evidence is listed first when present — not a treatment recommendation.

  • Oxandrolone · therapeutic
  • Prednisone · therapeutic
  • Testosterone · therapeutic
  • testosterone enanthate · therapeutic

Pathways: EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance; Antifolate resistance; MAPK signaling pathway; Cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction; NF-kappa B signaling pathway; HIF-1 signaling pathway; FoxO signaling pathway; Sphingolipid signaling pathway

MyDisease.info · MONDO:0005797

Literature

Is anyone studying this?

793,136

793,136 papers — among the better-studied rare conditions, though still a fraction of common-disease literature (breast cancer: over 700,000). Median papers in the last 10 years for a rare disease in this dataset (publications denominator n=3967) is 59.

793,136 papers since the earliest indexed year in this search — median last-10-year count for a rare disease in this dataset is 59 (publications denominator n=3967).

396,048 in the last 10 years · high confidence · 100th percentile (publications denominator)

Phrase hits: 192 · MeSH hits: 18

Open Europe PMC search

Who's working on it?

884

Distinct author names in 200 sampled papers — named people below.

Who's working on it?

People publishing on this condition (sampled Europe PMC records). Affiliation is the most recent found in that sample.

  1. 01
    WANG FENGJIANG9 papers · 2010
    Papers in Europe PMC
  2. 02
    Corcoran C8 papers · 2001

    Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  3. 03
    LOCKSHIN CURTIS A8 papers · 2010
    Papers in Europe PMC
  4. 04
    Grinspoon S7 papers · 2001

    Neuroendocrine Department, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston 02114, USA.

    Papers in Europe PMC
  5. 05
    Klibanski A6 papers · 2001
    Papers in Europe PMC
  6. 06
    PEART JOANNE6 papers · 2004
    Papers in Europe PMC
  7. 07
    AQUILA BRIAN M5 papers · 2009
    Papers in Europe PMC
  8. 08
    DOMINY STEPHEN S5 papers · 2009
    Papers in Europe PMC
  9. 09
    Erlandson KM5 papers · 2023

    Department of Medicine, University of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA. Erlandson@ucdenver.edu

    Papers in Europe PMC
  10. 10
    HOPKINS SETH C5 papers · 2009
    Papers in Europe PMC

Clinical research

Is a treatment being tested?

11

interventional trials for this specific condition

11 interventional trials matched this specific condition name; none in our sample are currently recruiting.

Data as of 11 September 2026

11 interventional trials — more than 77.2% of diseases in the trials denominator have none at all (5501 of 7126; this disease is at the 92.8th percentile).

high confidence · 92.8th percentile (trials denominator)

Recruiting interventional trials

From the matched ClinicalTrials.gov set

11 interventional trials matched after quoted-phrase search and title/condition post-filter.

No currently recruiting studies in the matched set. Open the same search on ClinicalTrials.gov.

Observational and natural-history studies

2 observational studies match this condition. These do not test a treatment and are not counted in the interventional-trial headline, but they are genuine research: natural-history work often defines the endpoints needed for a future rare-disease trial, and families may be able to enroll.

None of the matched observational studies is currently listed as recruiting.

Open the complete matched search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Other registries (secondary)

Broader net from EU CTIS, ISRCTN, and ICTRP when available — deduped against ClinicalTrials.gov IDs already counted above. Dual-model LLM relevance gates what we keep. These rows are not added to the interventional headline.

raw 2 · after dedupe 2 · already on CT.gov 0 · kept 0 · parent 0 · uncertain 2 · dropped 0 · fetched 2026-07-30

Source notes: ictrp: Error: ICTRP public search unavailable (WHO portal is SPA-only; SOAP needs partnership). Tried: https://apps.who.int/tri

No secondary-registry studies passed dual-model relevance for this condition name (after dedupe).

Uncertain / not reviewed (2)

Where to find support

Condition-specific patient organisations, when Orphanet lists them, are on the disease’s Orphanet page. We also link umbrella groups that support undiagnosed and ultra-rare families.

Orphanet entry for AIDS wasting syndrome — check Associations / patient organisations on that page.

India — NPRD

Last verified 2026-07-26

This ORPHAcode is not on our curated NPRD list (direct or Mondo-parent match). That does not decide clinical eligibility; families in India should ask a notified Centre of Excellence about current coverage.

Hand-curated for this project. ORPHAcode mappings are best-effort and may be incomplete or imprecise for umbrella categories. Parent (Mondo) matches mean the policy lists a broader category — confirm eligibility with a Centre of Excellence. Financial entitlements summarised from public policy statements and may change. This is not official government guidance.

How we counted this

Europe PMC query (preferred label + any corrected label + Orphanet and Mondo exact synonyms, stoplisted; unioned with resolved MeSH labels when available). UMLS / OMIM / NCIT cross-references are stored on the overview but are not added to the query string.

("AIDS wasting syndrome") OR (MESH:"HIV Wasting Syndrome") OR ("AIDS" OR "AIDS syndrome" OR "AIDS-related")

Run this search on Europe PMC

MeSH descriptor terms unioned into the query: HIV Wasting Syndrome

ClinicalTrials.gov query (quoted phrases + MeSH via query.cond, plus recall-expansion terms when used):

"AIDS wasting syndrome" OR "HIV Wasting Syndrome"

Interventional trials matched via: both, phrase, mesh (mesh = registered under a MeSH descriptor no name phrase would catch; recall-expansion = gene / selected parent terms used only for trials).

Study-type breakdown: 11 interventional · 2 observational · 0 expanded access. Only interventional studies enter the trial headline.

Query health: ok — strategies attempted: phrase, mesh; with hits: phrase, mesh

Run this search on ClinicalTrials.gov

Confidence reasoning

  • Preferred label is multi-word and distinctive
  • No synonyms dropped by stoplist
  • No label/synonym collisions with other diseases in this corpus

Ingested 2026-07-27T03:38:33.001Z