Antibody patterns to herpesviruses in Kaposi's sarcoma. II. Serological association of American Kaposi's sarcoma with cytomegalovirus.

The prominent finding of this extended serologic analysis on American and African Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) patients and appropriately matched control groups is the detection of a specific serologic association of cytomegalovirus (CMV) with American KS patients. All American KS sera contained CMV antibodies and their geometric mean titers (GMT) were significantly higher than those in sera of melanoma patients (GMT ratio k = 5.3 to 7.7 by complement fixation [CF], k = 8.9 by indirect hemagglutination [IHA]) or in sera of age- and sex-matched healthy controls (k = 12.6 to 16.0 by CF, k = 12.6 by IHA). The result is strongly reminiscent of the data obtained previously for European KS. Although the GMT to CMV of African KS patients were similar to the GMT of the American KS groups, their significance cannot be demonstrated due to the high background of CMV infections in the control groups. Complex mechanisms are hypothesized, by analogy with the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) involvement in Burkitt's lymphoma (BL), for a CMV involvement in the development of KS.