RESUMO
Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) associated with HHV8 is one of the common connective tissue malignancies especially in immunocompromised patients. The aim of the present study was to determine the common HHV8 genotypes in hospitalized patients in Tehran, Iran. A total of 36 archival paraffin-embedded KS tissue samples of patients with common characterization of KS were collected between 1999 to 2010 from hospitals in Tehran, Iran. After identifying the presence of HHV8 by amplification of its ORF 26 region, the ORF K1 region was amplified, sequenced and used for phylogenetic analysis. Among 30 ORF 26 positive cases, ORF K1 was amplified successfully in 14 cases. Consistent with other studies in Asia, subtype A (9 cases; 64.28%) and subtype C (5 cases; 35.71%) were detected by phylogenetic analysis. This result is in concordance with results from other countries of the region, however the ratio of genotype A to C is higher in our study compared to another study in the country.