Prevalence of HHV8 in AIDS Patients with Kaposi's sarcoma

Confirmed HIV positive patients who presented at the University College Hospital within the period of October 2008 to September 2009, were examined for KS. The pattern of presentation was described and the diagnosis of AIDS-KS confirmed histologically. To document the possible association of risk factors, a control group of HIV positive patients without KS, age and sex matched was recruited. Their clinical, immunological and virological characteristics were compared. The presence of HHV-8 infection was detected immunohistochemically using the HHV8 LANA1 (orf 73, clone13B10) antibody. Thirteen patients with AIDS-KS were recruited during the study period. The prevalence of AIDS-KS in Ibadan is 0.5% and the male: female ratio was 1.2:1. There was no statistical difference between the case and control groups' number of lifetime sexual partners (P=0.61), history of STD (p=0.39), CD4 count (p=0.70) and HIV-1 viral load (p=0.20). All the patients presented with multiple sites of involvement. All the AIDS-KS tissue sections indicated a positive stain for the HHV-8 antigen (p=0.001) while the non-KS tissue sections were negative.