Upper airway obstruction in a woman with AIDS-related laryngeal Kaposi's sarcoma

Abstract

Kaposi's sarcoma rarely causes upper airway obstruction. In the only two previously reported cases, both patients were men who died of hemorrhage shortly after tracheostomy. We describe a 45-year-old woman with AIDS who presented with stridor secondary to Kaposi's sarcoma of the larynx. To our knowledge, this is the first report of this presentation in a woman and the first reported patient with Kaposi's sarcoma to survive tracheostomy.