Kaposi's Sarcoma in Community Practice

Abstract

To the Editor.— In the hundred years since Moritz Kaposi published his classic work on multiple idiopathic pigmented sarcoma of the skin,¹ many individual cases of Kaposi's sarcoma have been described, and a few large series have been reported,^2-4 but, the nature of this condition in private dermatologic practice has not been defined. We have been studying 100 patients with Kaposi's sarcoma who were seen, diagnosed, and treated by practitioners in the community. A diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma was made on 193 of 83,000 biopsy specimens (0.2%) submitted to a private laboratory of dermatopathology. On the basis of critical histopathologic review, 117 lesions from 100 patients with a definitive diagnosis of Kaposi's sarcoma were selected for further study. In all biopsy specimens included in this series, there were collections of spindle-shaped cells in the dermis closely associated with bloodfilled vascular slits that lacked a well defined endothelial