AIDS-ASSOCIATED KAPOSIS-SARCOMA IN TANZANIANS OF INDIAN ORIGIN - REPORT OF CASES AND REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Abstract

Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) was up to the 1980's seen as a rare indolent sporadic disease in Southern Europe and as an endemic disease in East and Central Africa. With the onset of the HIV/AIDS epidemic a more aggressive, disseminated type of KS was recognized in HIV infected people with AIDS. Interestingly, KS has not been reported in Indians living in Africa for several generations. Recently KS was however, diagnosed in two Tanzanian Indians, both infected with HIV. Clinical and pathological studies of these two cases showed the characteristic hallmarks of KS in both HIV infected and uninfected people. From the literature and cancer registry data it appears that KS has been even more rare in India and other Far Eastern countries, compared to Europe and the Americas, with only a few cases reported with and without HIV association. The present data and that reported earlier in the literature support the notion of an infectious agent transmitted sexually in the pathogenesis of KS. Ethnic/genetic factors could also be of importance.