Castleman Disease, and Primary

Antibody responses against lytic and latent Kaposi sarcoma (KS)–associated herpesvirus antigens were investigated in pa-tients with KS, multicentric Castleman disease (MCD), and primary effusion lymphoma. Antibodies against the lytic an-tigen K8.1 were 5-fold higher in patients with MCD than those with KS, whereas antibodies to the sum of latent an-tigens v-cyclin and LANA were 27-fold higher in patients with KS, compared with patients with MCD (). TheP!.001 sum of anti–v-cyclin and anti-LANA antibody titers discrim-inated patients with KS from those with MCD and KS with 93 % sensitivity and 83 % specificity. These results suggest that antibody responses to lytic and latent KS-associated herpes-virus antigens differ in these diseases. Kaposi sarcoma–associated herpes virus (KSHV), also called human herpesvirus 8, is the causative agent of all forms of Kaposi sarcoma (KS) [1, 2]. In KS, most proliferating tumor spindle cells are infected with KSHV and express KSHV pro