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Background: Epidemic Kaposi’s sarcoma is the most common AIDS-defining cancer
especially in sub-Saharan Africa where HIV burden is high. The combination of ARVs and
chemotherapy is now a cornerstone in the treatment of EKS. Despite the wide use of
chemotherapy, there have been very few studies on the outcome of chemotherapy treatment.
Objectives: To describe the outcome of chemotherapy treatment to patients with EKS at
RDTC.
Methodology: This is the cross sectional medical record review which was conducted at
RDTC at KCMC using medical records of patients with EKS and who received treatments for
EKS. Convenient sampling technique was used where by records of all patients who are HIV
positive and histologically confirmed Kaposi’s sarcoma from 1st January 2011 to 31st
December 2015 were included.Statistical analysis was done using the Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 20.0.
Results: About 54 patients with EKS on chemotherapy, 85.2% received
Doxorubicin/Bleomycin/vincristine and 14.8% received bleomycin/vincristine. Treatment
outcome were as follows; 9 (16.7%) had complete response, 31(57.4%) had partial response,
4(7.4%) had stable disease and 10(18.5) had progrogressive disease. Nausea and vomiting
which occured in 6 patients was the most common side effect recorded followed by anemia,
thrombocytopenia and fever which were each recorded once.
Conclusion:This study shows that chemotherapy treatment (ABV or BV) has favourable
tumor response and less myelotoxicity. These benefits coupled with their relative cheap
availabity, make ABV or BV suitable in resource limited hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa like
KCMC. |
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