herpes simplex virus encephalitis in hamadan, iran.

background and objectives: encephalitis can cause a severe public health problem. the main aim of this research was to evaluate the medical laboratory results of patients with herpes simplex virus (hsv) encephalitis. materials and methods: diagnosis of encephalitis for these patients was firstly based on a clinical profile for herpes simplex encephalitis (hse), plus either a detected hsv1&2-dna by pcr in csf or brain neuro-imaging results. results: molecular testing on csf showed that 15 patients (15%) had hsv infection, 5 patients (5%) had varicella zoster virus (vzv) and one case was positive for human immunodeficiency virus (hiv)-rna in csf. the cause of encephalitis in 79 out of 100 patients (79%) was unknown. the comparison of csf analysis in hsv positives and negatives showed a significant increase of glucose and protein levels in hsv positives than negatives. the mortality rate was 46.6% (7/15) in patients with hsv encephalitis compared to 11.4% (10/85) in non-hsv encephalitis (p = 0.003). conclusions: in the current study, 15% of cases were diagnosed as having hsv.