[Association of Kaposi's sarcoma and Hodgkin's disease].

Abstract

The authors report a new case of the association Hodgkin's disease and Kaposi's sarcoma. A woman of North African origin and suffering from mediastinal Hodgkin's disease developed, after the commencement of polychemotherapy with radiotherapy, Kaposi's cutaneous sarcoma, typical, clinically, histologically and by electron microscopy. In the light of this new case, the authors review 41 cases of the Hodgkin-Kaposi association found in the literature and discuss the inter-relations between Kaposi's sarcoma and diseases of the haemoreticular system, in particular carcinomas, immuno-depressive states (notably in association with renal transplants) and virus disorders (essentially herpes). It might be possible to incriminate in the aetiology of Kaposi's disease a carcinogenetic process of viral origin during a state of immuno-depression.