Sensitivity of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus replication to antiviral drugs. Implications for potential therapy.

Long-term remission of Kaposi sarcoma–associated herpesvirus-related multicentric Castleman disease with anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody therapy

“…16 Cidofovir is the most potent inhibitor of KSHV productive infection. 18 Clinical and viral evidence presented here demonstrates that 4 months of therapy with cidofovir had no effect on KSHV-related MCD. Other mechanisms beyond productive viral replication are thus operational in perpetuating the high viremic levels typical of the disease.…”

Primary effusion lymphoma after heart transplantation: a new entity associated with human herpesvirus-8

“…34 Despite the apparently local growth of primary effusion lymphomas, our investigation demonstrates the early neoplastic spread to the bone marrow suggesting that the treatment of this peculiar lymphoma would be necessarily systemic. On the other hand, the role of multidrug resistance requires more extensive studies but its association with the proven toxicity of chemotherapy programs in immunocompromised patients, underlines the urgent need to explore different treatment modalities, such as the use of new antiviral drugs capable of inhibiting the virus replication 35 and new biological response modifiers.…”

Selective killing of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus lytically infected cells with a recombinant immunotoxin targeting the viral gpK8.1A envelope glycoprotein

“…Nucleoside analogs that selectively inhibit viral DNA replication are the first line anti-herpesvirus drugs. Originally developed to treat herpes simplex virus infection, they also inhibit KSHV in vitro 60,[64][65][66] and have displayed activity against KSHV-associated disease based on reductions in viral oropharyngeal shedding 67,68 and clinical relief of MCD symptoms. 34,35 At the outset, we considered three alternatives: (1) ganciclovir and the immunotoxin might display additive anti-KSHV activities; (2) they might detected on a small subpopulation of induced cells; this pattern was not observed on uninduced cells (data not shown).…”