Moritz Kaposi: Idiopathic pigmented sarcoma of the skin

Abstract

Moritz Kaposi first published a description of the entity that bears his name in 1872, calling it “idiopathic multiple pigntented sarcoma of the skin.” For many years thereafter, Kaposi's sarcoma was considered to be a relatively rare, slow-growing malignancy, most commonly seen in middle-aged and elderly men. This changed in 1981, with Alvin Friedman-Kein's report of what eventually proved to be HIV-associated (epidemic) Kaposi's sarcoma. Kaposi's sarcoma is now one of the diagnostic markers of the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, as well as the most common neoplastic complication of that disease. HIV-associated Kaposi's sarcoma tends to disseminate widely to mucous membranes and the viscera. Almost all of the cases reported in the United States have occurred in homosexual and bisexual men, and a number of hypotheses have been suggested to explain this association. Over the past several years, however, the incidence of HIV-associated Kaposi's sarcoma has declined, and the reasons for this are also uncertain.