Prevalence and Clinical Characteristics of Visceral Involvement in HIV-Associated Kaposi Sarcoma: A Three-Year Retrospective Cohort Study at a Tertiary Care Center in Mexico.

Abstract

Despite advances in the understanding of Kaposi sarcoma (KS), research from resource-limited settings remains limited. This study aimed to estimate the proportion of epidemic visceral KS among Mexican people living with HIV (PLHIV) and to describe their clinical and biochemical characteristics. We included PLHIV with histopathologically confirmed KS who received care at the National Medical Center La Raza between March 2020 and February 2023. We calculated the prevalence of epidemic KS and epidemic visceral KS and analyzed clinical and biochemical variables potentially associated with visceral involvement. The prevalence of epidemic KS was 5.6%. Among these cases, 51.4% had visceral involvement, yielding an overall prevalence of 2.8%. Patients with epidemic visceral KS exhibited significantly higher rates of oral mucosal involvement and lower hemoglobin levels compared with those without visceral disease. These findings highlight the substantial burden of epidemic visceral KS in this population and should be confirmed in future studies with larger cohorts and robust designs aimed at identifying clinical and biochemical predictors of visceral involvement.