Kaposi's Sarcoma after Kidney Transplantation: a 21-Years Experience

INTRODUCTION: The long-term use of immunosuppressive agents for prevention of allograft rejection increases the risk of malignancy approximately 100 times as high as that in the general population and Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is a relatively common malignancy after kidney transplantation. The aim of present study was to investigate the frequency of KS in patients with kidney transplantation in 20 years period. MATERIAL AND METHODS: In this study Charts and pathology reports of 1487 recipients for kidney allografts treated at Imam Reza hospital between 1991 and 2012 were reviewed. The SPSS software package version 16 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois, USA) was used for the statistical analysis. RESULTS: There were 17 of 1487 incident cases of KS kidney transplant population at our hospital in period of study. There is no significant difference between age and gender of patients. The mean time between transplantation and non-KS malignant tumors was 34.4 ± 21.8 months (range 12–140 months), while in KS patients it was 18.7 ± 25.2 months, which was statistically significantly different (P < 0.05). After detection of KS in 12 patients, we perform serum antibody detection against HHV. Among them, 8 (66.6%) were seropositive. CONCLUSION: KS is a common long-term complication in renal transplant recipients, with an increased incidence compared with the general population. Given that candidates for organ transplantation who are seropositive for HHV-8 -and thus at risk for KS- can now be identified, chemoprevention should be available in this high-risk population.