renal transplantation and kaposi’s sarcoma: report of three cases

introduction : recipients of renal transplants are susceptible to kaposi's sarcoma (ks) as a result of treatment with immunosuppressive drugs. ks is one of the most common post transplant malignancies. variety of factors appear to contribute to the development of ks including: genetic factors, sex hormones, immunosuppression and oncogenic viruses.this study present three cases of renal transplant recipients who developed ks and cytomegalovirus (cmv) infection simultaneously in the first year after transplantation. cases : three kidney transplantation subjects aged 43, 50 and 53 who had been treated with cyclosporin neural, steroids, mycophenolate mofetile presented with purple skin lesions and constitutional complaints in the first year of transplantation. necessary workup was down, biopsy of the lesions confirmed ks and immunohistological assay for pp65 confirmed cmv infection.   conclusion: although ks is a multifactorial symptom, in these three patients occurrence of ks simultaneously or shortly after cmv infection suggest that cmv may play role in developing ks in renal transplant recipients.