Case report of ocular Kaposi's sarcoma

Abstract

Background: Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is generally considered a neoplastic disorder of vascular origin and occurs in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) or who have received immunosuppressive treatments after an organ transplant (Soulier et al., Blood 86(4):1276-80, 1995; Viejo-Borbolla and Schulz, AIDS Rev 5(4):222-9, 2003; Schulz, J Antimicrob Chemother 45(Suppl T3):15-27, 2000; Aversa et al. Crit Rev Oncol Hematol 53(3):253-65, 2005; Mbulaiteye and Engels, Int J Cancer 119(11):2685-91, 2006; Tessari et al., Eur J Dermatol 16(5):553-7, 2006). Several Kaposi's sarcoma case reports involving eyelids and conjunctiva have been published (Bavishi et al., Int J STD AIDS 23(3):221-2, 2012; Baumann et al., Ger J Ophthalmol 4(4):239-45, 1995). Case presentation: we report a 13 years old asian male patient rare case of ocular KS that was initiated from the sclera and progressed into the cornea and conjunctiva without an human Immunodeificiency Virus (HIV) or HHV-8 infection after a peripheral blood stem cells transplantation. In this case, anti- vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy was attempted to stop the advance of ocular lesions and failed. Eventually, the KS was cured by a limbo-corneal lamellar graft, an amniotic membrane and scleral allograft transplantation plus intraoperative mitomycin C(MMC) after the complete excision of the tumors. Conclusion: A compete surgical excision combined with the intraoperative application of MMC, as well as grafts to repair the scleral, conjunctival, and corneal surfaces, could prevent a recurrence of KS.