Kaposi’s Sarcoma Virus May Have Been Found, Expert Says

The virus that causes Kaposi’s sarcoma, a disfiguring and sometimes fatal tumorous complication found in many AIDS patients, may finally have been identified, a UC San Francisco researcher said Thursday.

The discovery could lead to blood tests to better identify people who harbor the virus--and could one day allow inoculations in high-risk populations, said Dr. Don Ganem.

As predicted by earlier research, the suspect virus, called KSHV, is herpes-related, he said. It shows similarities to Epstein-Barr and a monkey tumor virus known as herpes virus saimiri.

“What we have done now is grow the virus,” said Ganem, a microbiologist. “Testing of anti-herpes drugs will be done very soon, and we are working on a blood test, with some encouraging preliminary results.”

If confirmed, the discovery could enable AIDS researchers to come up with a vaccination that would prevent spread of the disease, Ganem said. But he warned that any such immunization would probably not affect existing tumors, which are apparently caused by a latent form of the virus.

Ganem’s paper was published Thursday in Nature Medicine.

Kaposi’s sarcoma, often marked by oval-shaped, red-purple lesions on the skin, was once a rare condition confined to elderly men of Jewish or Mediterranean descent.

The number of cases exploded with the rise of AIDS in the 1980s.

“KS is the most common tumor that AIDS patients get,” Ganem said. “Among gay men with AIDS, 20 to 25 percent will present KS.”

Although Kaposi’s is not usually fatal, it can be in some instances, particularly when it afflicts the lungs. But the disfigurement can be more damaging to the patient’s welfare than many other AIDS-related infections.