Pulmonary Kaposi's disease diagnosis by transbronchial biopsy

While Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) classically present with rather typical skin lesions in elderly Jewish and Italian males, visceral lesions are also well documented. More recently the occurrence of this disease in patients with the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is being recognized with increasing frequency. The difficulty in diagnosing pulmonary involvement in these patients is complicated by the nonspecific clinical and radiologic presentation which may mimic opportunistic infection. Tissue diagnosis is invaluable in such instances but controversy exists as to whether such diagnosis can be reliably made by transbronchial biopsy in lieu of open lung biopsy. The authors report a case in which a patient with AIDS was diagnosed as having pulmonary KS on the basis of a transbronchial biopsy. The clinical and histologic findings are described and the pertinent literature is reviewed.