Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Aims and Background
Kaposi sarcoma (KS) is a vascular neoplasm caused by human herpesvirus. Despite its significance, there is limited data regarding the causes and mortality factors associated with KS, particularly concerning cardiovascular mortality rates and specific influencing factors.


Methods
The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database was used to gather data from 2000 to 2020. The primary endpoint was overall survival, assessed via log-rank analysis and Kaplan-Meier plots. Hazard ratios (HR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using SAS v9.4, with significance set at p<0.05.


Results
We identified 8,247 patients with KS. Most were male (90.6%) and aged 40-59 years old (38.5%).
Mortality data from KS showed that 56.3% of diagnosed patients were alive. Among those who died, 49.8% died of infectious causes, 11.4% died of cardiac causes, and the remaining died of other causes, such as leukemias and complications. Advanced age (>80 years) vs. 0-19 year age group (HR: 2.263; 95% CI: 1.068-4.795; p=0.033), non-Hispanic Black race vs. non-Hispanic White race (HR 1.492; 95% CI: 1.369-1.627; p=0.001), and visceral involvement vs. cutaneous KS (HR 1.709; 95% CI: 1.487-1.963; p=0.001) were factors associated with increased mortality. Females had a slightly lower long-term survival than males (p<0.001). Married individuals, higher incomes (≥$75,000), and urban areas of living had higher survival rates compared to widowed patients, lower-income patients (<$75,000), and those in rural locations, respectively (p<0.001, for all).
In the subgroup analysis, females (24.3%; n=112) had significantly higher cardiac-related deaths than males (9.5%; n=297) (p<0.0001). Cardiac-related deaths were highest in White patients (16.1%; n=279), followed by Hispanics (10.4%; n=79).


Conclusions
Cardiac causes accounted for 11.4% of deaths. Various factors are associated with an increased mortality risk.