Evaluating the prevalence of Herpes Simplex virus type 8 related Kaposi's Sarcoma in Iran by Nested PCR

Kaposi's sarcoma is a connective tissue malignancy which is more common in patients with immune suppression states like Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). This study was carried out to study prevalence of Herpes virus type 8 (HHV8) in Kaposi's Sarcoma patients in Tehran. Forty two tissue samples with suspicious diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma were found in paraffin embedded archives of Loghman, Shohada, Razi and Cancer institute hospitals of Tehran collected between 1379 and 1389. After DNA extraction, the presence of HHV-8 was evaluated using specific primers of ORF-26 fragment of viral genome with a nested PCR approach. among 42 tested samples, 30 samples were positive for HHV8. The average age of positive samples was 61.6 years. 23 samples were from male patients and 7 from females. We found 30 cases positive for HHV8 among 42 tested paraffin embedded samples. Considering 4 samples were primarily reported as pseudo Kaposi's sarcoma in pathologic examination, HHV8 was detected in 78.9% of Kaposi's sarcoma cases. This finding also supports the sensitivity of nested PCR method for detection of this virus.