A 56-year-old female with refractory adult-onset Still's disease presented with ocular herpes zoster infection during TCZ treatment. After three days of acyclovir treatment (5 mg/kg), she developed a severe headache and high fever. Viral DNA isolation and cerebral spinal fluid abnormalities led to a herpes zoster meningitis diagnosis. Her meningitis was cured by high doses of intravenous acyclo...

BACKGROUND A phase 2 trial was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of a topical antiviral, sorivudine, as an adjuvant to valacyclovir for the treatment of acute herpes zoster. METHODS In this randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind trial, 25 patients were treated with either sorivudine or placebo cream. All patients began 7 days of valacyclovir treatment on day 3. Zoster lesion swab sampl...

Herpes zoster causing skin eruptions and neuropathic pain is routinely seen in the clinical setting. We present an interesting case of weakness involving more than one nerve root level secondary to shingles. The differential diagnosis of lower extremity weakness is long. While a polyradiculopathy secondary to herpes zoster infection is rare, it must be considered in a patient with dermatomal in...

Orbital apex syndrome is a rare complication of herpes zoster ophthalmicus. A patient being followed in our clinic for herpes zoster ophthalmicus developed orbital apex syndrome in the second week of treatment. Clinical diagnosis was supported by magnetic resonance imaging. Treatment with systemic steroid and antiviral therapy resulted in total regression of ophthalmoplegia at 2 months. However...

P ATIENTS WITH LYMPHOMA, leukemia, multiple myeloma, or other conditions characterized by an altered immunologic state have an increased susceptibility to the manifestations of common viral infections. In such patients, disseminated infections with the DNA viruses, herpes simplex, and herpes zoster have carried a poor prognosis.1’2 Various attempts have been made to treat these disseminated inf...

BACKGROUND Varicella (chickenpox) is the primary disease caused by varicella-zoster virus. It is extremely contagious and is frequent in children. Indeed, in the absence of vaccination, a high proportion of the population is liable to contract it. Herpes zoster -more frequent among adults- is caused by reactivation of the latent virus. The objective of this study is to describe the status of an...

Edema bullae typically forms at the site of skin swelling during acute states of volume overload, most commonly during renal or cardiac failure. Herpes zoster is a reactivation of latent varicella zoster virus that typically presents as painful vesicles in a dermatomal distribution. In immunocompromised individuals, disseminated herpes zoster skin manifestations may occur with several lesions i...

BACKGROUND Latent varicella zoster virus reactivates mainly in sensory ganglia such as the dorsal root ganglion (DRG) or trigeminal ganglion. The DRG contains many receptor channels and is an important region for pain signal transduction. Sustained abnormal electrical activity to the spinal cord via the DRG in acute herpes zoster can result in neuropathic conditions such as postherpetic neuralg...