The effect of topical corticosteroids on the susceptibility of immune animals to reinoculation with Herpes simplex.

To evaluate the effect of topical corticosteroid treatment in recurrent herpetic corneal disease in rabbits, primary dendritic lesions were allowed to heal. After an interval of eight weeks the animals were then treated for 10 days with either dexamethasone ointment or ointment base with no recurrence of virus shedding or corneal herpetic disease; following reinoculation with the same strain of herpes virus and continuatioti of therapy, more animals with dendrites and virus isolations were found in the steroid-treated group. In a second experiment, the eyes of rabbits treated with dexamethasone and IDU ointments developed deyidritic keratitis and had virus reisolated significantly less than those treated with the steroid alone. This animal model then would provide a means to compare new antiviral drugs with IDU in the immune host. Since most herpetic keratitis in man occurs in immune subjects, such a comparison might offer a model of herpetic keratitis more analogous to the human disease than the primary infection of rabbits' eyes.