Comparison of Prevalence of Kaposi's Sarcoma in HHV8+ and HHV8- HIV Infected Patients in South-South Nigeria

This study was carried out to see if there are any differences between the prevalence of Kaposi’s sarcoma in HIV infected patients with antibody to Human Herpes Virus 8 (HHV8) or not. Methods: The sera of 180 subjects were evaluated for HIV and HHV8 using double ELISA (Genscreen Ultra HIV Ag-Ab ELISA and JN HIV 1/2 ELISA Kit) for HIV screening and advanced Biotechnology Incorporated ELISA for HHV8 IgG antibody detection respectively. Those HIV infected patients that had skin lesions suspected to be Kaposi’s sarcoma were biopsied for histological diagnosis. Results: A total of 180 subjects were recorded for this study. The ratio of male: female was 1:1.02. In all, 100 subjects tested positive to HIV screening and 87 (87%) patients tested positive to HHV8 antibody. Of the 87 patients that were positive to HHV8 antibodies 32 (36.7%) were histologically confirmed to have Kaposi’s sarcoma. Conclusion: We found a high rate of prevalence of Kaposi’s sarcoma KS among HIV infected patients with HHV8 antibodies.