Among men, HHV-8 transmission may occur through sexual activity, particularly sex with other men. No evidence was observed for heterosexual transmission to women.

No abstract

The profile of cancer risks in EPWAs generally resembled that in younger adults with AIDS, although RRs were lower because of higher background incidence rates. We speculate that prostate cancer risk was low because of reduced screening for this cancer in EPWAs.

The association between injection drug use and human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8) was examined to investigate bloodborne transmission of the virus. In all, 1905 injection drug users (IDUs) enrolled in a cross-sectional study were tested for K8.1 antibodies to HHV-8 lytic antigen. Logistic regression was used to adjust for demographic and sexual behavior variables. HHV-8 seroprevalence was 10% among women, 10% among heterosexual men, and 23% among men who have sex with men. In adjusted analyses, HHV-8 seroprevalence increased with longer duration of injection drug use for each of these groups ( , , and P p .01 P p .03 P p for trend, respectively). HHV-8 infection is relatively common among IDUs in San Francisco, and longer .049 duration of injection drug use is associated with an increase in the risk of HHV-8 infection that is not explained by sexual behavior or demographic differences. These results are consistent with the occurrence of bloodborne transmission of HHV-8 among IDUs.Human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), also known as "Kaposi sarcoma-associated herpesvirus," is an oncogenic virus that is associated with Kaposi sarcoma, primary effusion lymphoma, and multicentric Castleman disease [1][2][3][4]. The high seroprevalence and seroincidence of HHV-8 among US men who have sex with men (MSM) [5][6][7] suggest that the primary mode of transmission of HHV-8 in the United States is sexual contact between men.The evidence for bloodborne transmission of HHV-8 is mixed. Transmission via blood transfusion has not been found so far [8,9], and studies of HHV-8 infection and injection drug use have yielded inconsistent results. Some studies have found an association with frequency of drug injection [10][11][12], but a recently published investigation of HHV-8 in Dutch injection drug users (IDUs) found little evidence that HHV-8 is transmitted through drug injection [13].In this study, we examined data and serum samples from street-recruited IDUs in the San Francisco Bay area, including women, heterosexual men, and MSM. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the duration of injection drug use, a marker for bloodborne exposures, was associated with HHV-8 infection independently of sociodemographic and sexual risk factors.