An atypical aggressive Kaposi's sarcoma in a HIV-negative bisexual man

ABSTRACT

We describe a case of Kaposi's sarcoma in a previously healthy 35-year-old bisexual West Indian man of African descent who was seronegative for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and human T-cell lymphotropic virus-1 (HTLV-1) and who presented with extensive mucocutaneous lesions, weight loss, visceral and generalized lymph node involvement, poor response to combination therapy with vinblastine and interferon alfa-2a, and a short survival of eight months from the onset of illness. This is the first documented case of Kaposi's sarcoma in Dominica. The presentation is unusual in that it is similar to the aggressive and disseminated Kaposi's sarcoma seen only in AIDS and the florid variant of the endemic disease in young men in Equatorial Africa.