Regression of Kaposi’s sarcoma during therapy with HIV-1 protease inhibitors: A prospective pilot study

Nelfinavir, an HIV protease inhibitor, induces apoptosis and cell cycle arrest in human cervical cancer cells via the ROS-dependent mitochondrial pathway

“…Early support for this came from a report of a patient with regression of Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) following therapy with HIV-PIs. Such antitumor mechanism was attributed to HIV load reduction or CD4 T cell gain [7]. However, several recent studies support that HIV-PIs have direct antitumor activities that are independent of their antiviral activity, including leukemia [8], lung cancer [9], breast cancer [10], glioblastoma [11], multiple myeloma [12], melanoma [13] and ovarian cancer [14].…”

Remission from Kaposi's sarcoma on HAART is associated with suppression of HIV replication and is independent of protease inhibitor therapy

“…Protease inhibitors have direct antiproliferative and antiangiogenic effects in vitro, and inhibit the development of KS-like lesions in animal models by blocking an enzyme required for the production of infectious HHV-8 particles (Pati et al, 2002;Sgadari et al, 2002Sgadari et al, , 2003. In clinical trials, PI-containing regimens led to full remission from KS in approximately 50% of patients, and conferred an added survival benefit (Burdick et al, 1997;Aboulafia, 1998;Krischer et al, 1998;Cattelan et al, 1999;De Milito et al, 1999;Paparizos et al, 2002;Leitch et al, 2003;Sgadari et al, 2003).…”

“…The introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996 was associated with undetectable HIV plasma viral load in most patients, together with increased CD4 cell counts, increased survival, and fewer opportunistic infections and AIDS-associated malignancies (Li et al, 1998;Palella et al, 1998;Levine and Tulpule, 2001). Most studies have shown that KS improves during protease inhibitor (PI)-based antiretroviral treatment, an effect variously attributed to modulation of Tat and of production of HIV cytokines, restoration of specific anti-human herpesvirus type 8 (HHV-8) immunity, or the antiangiogenic and antiproliferative effect of PIs (Krischer et al, 1998;Lebbe et al, 1998;Cattelan et al, 1999Cattelan et al, , 2001Paparizos et al, 2002;Leitch et al, 2003). The impact of HAART on immune responses to HHV-8, the main aetiologic agent of KS and multicentric Castleman's disease, is poorly understood.…”

Dermoscopy in General Dermatology

“…From 1955 to January 2005, we found 61 dermoscopy articles reporting a variety of different indications in the context of NPSD [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51,52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60,61]. Preferentially we did not include dermoscopy articles in which the differential diagnosis to pigmented skin tumors was discussed.…”

“…By contrast, the presence of a gray-whitish veil indicates the location of the venous malformation in the deeper parts of the dermis and treatment success should be considered unsure [26, 27]. Further indications of dermoscopy in the monitoring of treatment are reported in patients with scabies [19], vitiligo [28], hair loss [29], as well as for the non-surgical topical and systemic treatment of basal cell carcinoma [30] and Kaposi sarcoma [31, 32], respectively. In our experience, the reported features of regressing lichen ruber planus (i.e.…”