Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Clinical aspects of epidemic Kaposi's sarcoma.
Cancer Surv. 1991;10:39-52. Unique Identifier : AIDSLINE MED/92331044 Buchbinder A; Friedman-Kien AE; New York University Medical Center, New York 10016.
Abstract:
Whereas previously KS represented a very rare and obscure neoplasm, it has become over the past decade a significant disease. Its appearance in various well defined risk populations and in immunosuppressed individuals and the mounting epidemiological evidence that KS may well represent a sexually transmitted disease in certain groups make KS an important tumour to study as a model for carcinogenesis. Among the various forms of KS described, it is the epidemic form of KS, most frequently associated with HIV infection, that is now the most prevalent form seen around the world. Clinically, the mucocutaneous and lymph node involvement are its most frequently recognized manifestations. Skin lesions in epidemic KS, unlike those in classical KS, appear anywhere on the skin or oral mucosa and at any age in patients with AIDS. Visceral lesions are often present, sometimes in the absence of cutaneous KS. Epidemic KS is rarely the cause of death in AIDS patients, even in those with visceral involvement, unlike the HIV-1 unrelated African endemic form of KS, which is an aggressive and malignant tumour. HIV testing is necessary to establish the diagnosis of AIDS in patients with epidemic KS, even in those patients with risk factors for HIV infection, since epidemic KS may represent an epidemic disease caused by a yet unidentified transmissible agent distinct from HIV. Concurrent transmission of HIV and the putative KS agent may have occurred in the homosexual patients with AIDS in whom KS has been so prevalent, and the recently identified form of epidemic KS in individuals not infected with HIV may well become yet a new form of this curious disease.
Keywords: Gastrointestinal Neoplasms/SECONDARY Human HIV Infections/COMPLICATIONS Lung Neoplasms/SECONDARY Lymphatic Metastasis Sarcoma, Kaposi's/EPIDEMIOLOGY/ETIOLOGY/*SECONDARY Skin Neoplasms/EPIDEMIOLOGY/ETIOLOGY/*PATHOLOGY Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. JOURNAL ARTICLE REVIEW REVIEW, TUTORIAL 921030
M92A0980
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Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1992. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
