Angiosarcoma in HIV-negative patients is not associated with HHV-8

Background: angiosarcoma is an aggressive,malignant neoplasm of vascular or lymphatic origin. herpes virus 8 (hhv-8) is a member of the herpes family with a tropism for endothelial cells and it has been proven to induce vascular neoplasms,such as kaposi’s sarcoma. the role of hhv-8 in the pathogenesis of angiosarcoma has not been well defined. objective: to investigate the relationship between the presence of hhv-8 and angiosarcoma. methods: in this study,the team investigated the relationship between the presence of hhv-8,as determined by polymerase chain reaction,and angiosarcoma,using samples from patients with epidemic kaposi’s sarcoma as controls. results: while all control cases with epidemic kaposi’s sarcoma were positive for hhv-8,none of the angiosarcoma cases was. conclusion: these findings support most previous studies that found no association between hhv-8 and angiosarcoma. ©2016 by anais brasileiros de dermatologia.