Zeitschrift für molekulare Biomarker und Diagnose

Immunostaining by Human Herpes Virus 8 Latent Nuclear Antigen-1 of Kaposi’s sarcoma: A Potential Biomarker of Severity of Disease?

Abstract

van Bogaert LJ

Objective: To investigate the clinical relevance of scoring Kaposi’s sarcoma herpes virus (KSHV) expression by Human Herpes Virus-8 (HHV-8) latency-associated nuclear antigen 1 (LANA 1) in the early (early patch and plaque) and late (nodular) stages. Methods: We applied a combined intensity weighted histoscore and a categorized score to 235 early patch, plaque and nodular stages, and compared our results with published data. Results: The mean individual scores were significantly lower in the early patch stage compared to the plaque and nodular stages. There was no significant difference in the mean individual scores between the plaque and nodular stage. There was a wide overlap in distribution of histoscore between the three stages. Conclusion: Since treatment modalities are not based on the histological stage nor on the histoscore, KSHV histoscoring appears not to be a useful biomarker of the severity of the disease.