I had a lesion on my leg biopsied and it came back positive for KS. I was also tested for HIV and was negative. This was 1 year ago. Since then I have been tested 2 more times. My question is, should I treat this isolated lesion? The infectious disease doctor whom I saw said that there was no harm in leaving the lesion there since it was non-HIV related. Hope you can shed some light on the subject.

Regards,

Michael

Your query serves as a reminder that not all patients with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) have HIV. KS in non-HIV patients tends to follow a less aggressive course. So your infectious disease doctor may be correct in that there may be no harm in leaving the lesion alone.

If you do choose to treat it, then let's explore the options. Since you are HIV-negative, you obviously can't take HIV drugs. Also a few lesions would not merit systemic chemotherapy. So some options include panretin gel, which is a gel approved for KS which you could apply once or twice a day to the lesions. Alternatively you could have very low dose chemotherapy (Velban) injected directly into the lesion. That often makes the lesion flake off. You would need to find a physician comfortable with applying that technique.

Lastly, although it is unlikely that your KS will spread internally since you are HIV negative, I would recommend that you have a chest x-ray if you haven't had one already. Similarly I would recommend that your health provider check a stool sample for blood if that already hasn't been done.