Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings January 2014, Volume 27, Number 1 | Page 33

Disseminated Kaposi’s sarcoma without cutaneous
involvement
Benjamin Shepard, DO, Dustin Tompkins, DO, Damon Baker, DO, and Jeffrey Stroup, PharmD

Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) is a low-grade vascular tumor caused by infection
with human herpesvirus 8. Prior to the AIDS epidemic, KS was rare in the
United States. With the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy, KS
has become far less common, now occurring at a rate of about 6 cases
per million people each year. It is still seen most commonly in those
infected with HIV, and cutaneous manifestations represent the most common presentation. In this case, we describe a patient with disseminated
AIDS-associated KS lacking cutaneous manifestations.

aposi’s sarcoma (KS) was first described in 1872 by
Moritz Kaposi, a Hungarian dermatologist, as an “idiopathic multiple pigmented sarcoma of the skin” (1).
KS is a low-grade vascular tumor associated with human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), also known as the KS-associated
herpesvirus (2). KS can be classified into four types, organized
by the clinical context in which it develops: classic, endemic,
iatrogenic, and AIDS associated (2, 3). The most common
of these is AIDS associated, occurring at a rate of about 6
cases per million people each year (4). A %L