Immunohistochemistry and Antigenic Expression of Five Proteins in Kaposi Sarcoma

Abstract

Introduction: Kaposi sarcoma poses problems in histological diagnosis because of its broad morphologic variants and similarity to many vasoproliferative lesions. Establishing diagnosis on the basis of tumour marker alone (especially a single result) is fraught with associated pitfalls because of the problem of non- specificity. Method: Fifteen (15) Kaposi sarcoma biopsies from seven (7) men and eight (8) women were used to find out the gene expression of vimentin, desmin, smooth muscle actin (SMA), S-100 and neuron specific enolase (NSE) in Kaposi sarcoma, Haematoxylin and eosin (H&E) method was used to confirm the diagnosis of Kaposi sarcoma in archival processed biopsies. Subsequently, Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was carried out to find out the expression of the antibodies listed. Results: Vimentin and SMA were found to be most reactive. Neuron specific enolase was mildly reactive while the rest were non-reactive. Conclusion: Only vimentin and SMA offer significant reactivity in the diagnosis of Kaposi sarcoma and are useful in undifferentiated neoplasms.