Chemotherapy Because of the small number of patients, response rates of classic KS to
chemotherapy are not well known. The disease is highly responsive to vinblastine , with response rates in the range of 90 percent. Very little information is available on the response to other drugs, although it would be logical to assume similar responsiveness of epidemic KS to the common chemotherapy agents.
Because of the relative rarity of the condition, there are also no good data on the response of patients with KS caused by immunosuppression . African KS appears to respond in a similar way to epidemic KS.
Determining whether a lesion becomes smaller with treatment can be quite difficult. Many patients have multiple lesions that are hard to measure accurately and may not respond in the same way to therapy. Changes in a lesion's shape or color may indicate some effect of treatment but not a significant one. One concern about using very aggressive therapy is that the treatment itself might depress the immune system .
• Vinblastine has been the most studied and used single agent. It is well tolerated when given intravenously
weekly. In epidemic KS, response rates of about 25 percent are obtained, with rare complete responses.
• Vincristine , closely related to vinblastine, has very different side effects and a slightly lower response rate.
Weekly treatment with both of these drugs combined, at a lower dosage or alternating full dosage on a weekly
schedule, raises the response rate to 40 to 75 percent. Side effects are remarkably low, and some complete
