Seroprevalence of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus infection among blood donors from Texas

PURPOSE: Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV), a gammaherpesvirus recently discovered among AIDS patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, is a potent ial candidate for screening in blood and plasma donors. While a number of s tudies have assessed KSHV infection among U.S. blood donors, larger-scale p opulation-based studies would be necessary to develop more refined estimate s of the magnitude and variation of KSHV infection across different geograp hic regions of the U.S. blood supply. The goal of the present study, theref ore, was to determine the seroprevalence of KSHV infection and to assess de mographic correlates of KSHV infection among south Texas blood donors. METHODS: KSHV infection was determined using specific serologic assays that measure antibodies to KSHV latent and lyric antigens. RESULTS: The overall seroprevalence of KSHV in Texas blood donors (15.0%) i s substantially higher than previously reported among blood donor and gener al population samples in the United States. This high rate of KSHV infectio n persisted across most of the sociodemographic subgroups under study but w as particularly elevated among participants with less than a high School ed ucation, The infection rate also increased linearly with age. CONCLUSIONS: The elevated infection rate reported in the present study sugg ests that screening methods to detect KSHV infection in blood donors should be considered. fit view of the etiologic role of KSHV for several malignan cies, it would be important for future studies to directly assess the risk of KSHV transmission via blood transfusion. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.