In 1985, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised the case definition of AIDS to include additional specific disease conditions and to exclude people as AIDS cases if they have negative result on testing for serum antibody to HTLV-III/LAV.

Since the first cases of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported in the United States in 1981, surveillance case definitions for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection (the cause of AIDS) and AIDS have undergone several revisions to respond to diagnostic advances.