Cutaneous neoplastic manifestations of HIV disease

DEFINITION/OVERVIEW Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) is the most frequent neoplastic disorder encountered in human immun - odeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patients, and was first described by Moritz Kaposi in 1872 as ‘idio - pathic, multiple, pigment sarcoma’.1 KS was con - sidered to be a relatively rare, slow-growing malig - nancy, most commonly seen in middle-aged and elderly men. However, this changed in 1981, with Alvin Friedman-Kein’s report of what eventually proved to be HIV-associated (epidemic) KS.1,2 This report described more than 50 previously healthy, young homosexual men with KS involving the lymph nodes, viscera, mucosa, and skin.2 Concurrent lifethreatening opportunistic infections were associated with profound immunosuppression, a syndrome now recognized as acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). While the different KS subtypes run different clinical courses, what remains constant are the phenotypic features of the proliferating vascular elements (Table 10).