HIGH-INCIDENCE OF KAPOSIS SARCOMA-ASSOCIATED HERPESVIRUS AND EPSTEIN-BARR-VIRUS IN TUMOR LESIONS AND PERIPHERAL-BLOOD MONONUCLEAR-CELLS FROM PATIENTS WITH KAPOSIS-SARCOMA IN UGANDA

With the advent of AIDS, Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) has become one of the l eading malignancies in sub-Saharan Africa, Recently, DNA sequences fro m a new human herpesvirus called KS-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) or h uman herpesvirus type 8 have been found in KS tumor lesions in high fr equency. Analyses of tumor lesions from 38 Ugandan KS patients indicat ed a uniform presence of KSHV in KS tumor lesions as revealed by polym erase chain reaction and Southern hybridization. In contrast, only 31% (11/36) of the normal skin biopsies from the same patient population were positive. The frequency of KSHV DNA detection in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of KS patients was also high (84%, 31/37). S imilar analyses revealed the presence of cytomegalovirus (21% in KS le sions) to be discordant with KS development, A large number of KS lesi ons (87%, 33/38) and KS PBMC (70%, 26/37) were, however, positive for Epstein-Barr virus sequences, In addition, KSHV DNA was not found in t he PBMC of Ugandans without KS.