OBJECTIVE Varicella-zoster virus has been reported to produce serious, often life-threatening, disease in immunosuppressed patients with a variety of diagnoses. The impact of this virus on the young child after heart transplantation has not been reported. METHODS We reviewed the charts of 28 children who were <10 years of age at heart transplantation and had at least 1 year of follow-up. The ...

An immunoglobulin M response to varicella-zoster virus was detected in 70% of zoster patients by solid-phase radioimmunoassay, in 52% by indirect immunofluorescence, in 48% by neutralization on sucrose density gradient fractions, and in 27% by an antibody class capture enzyme immunoassay. The patients showed marked variations in their varicella-zoster virus immunoglobulin M responses detectable...

Immune adherence hemagglutination was compared with the complement fixation test as a means of measuring antibodies to varicella-zoster virus. Analysis of acute- and convalescent-phase sera from patients infected with varicella-zoster or with herpes simplex virus showed the immune adherence hemagglutination test to be more sensitive than the complement fixation test, and greater cross-reactivit...

OBJECTIVE To characterize varicella zoster virus-related deaths and hospitalizations in Brazil before universal vaccination with the tetravalent (measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella) vaccine, attempting to collect baseline data on varicella morbidity and mortality in order to evaluate the impact of the varicella vaccination program. METHODS Varicella-associated mortality data were evaluate...

Varicella-zoster virus (VZV) is a ubiquitous human alphaherpesvirus that causes varicella (chicken pox) and herpes zoster (shingles). Varicella is a common childhood illness, characterized by fever, viremia, and scattered vesicular lesions of the skin. As is characteristic of the alphaherpesviruses, VZV establishes latency in cells of the dorsal root ganglia. Herpes zoster, caused by VZV reacti...

background: varicella zoster virus (vzv) causes chickenpox in children and zoster (zona) in the elderly. using rflp-pcr method for detection of vzv specific snps orf38, 54 and 62 could  distinguish the profile of vzv isolates. the aim of this study was to investigate enzymatic digestion pattern of vzv orf38 and orf54 in chickenpox patients using rflp technique. methods: thirty-eight chickenpox ...

this study aimed to investigate the frequency of varicella zoster virus (vzv) in benign and malignant breast tumors. a total of 24 carcinomas and 24 fibroadenomas paraffin embedded tumoral tissue samples were obtained from the pathology sections of toos and firoozgar hospitals in tehran, iran. all samples were collected from patients from june 2011 to february 2012. dna was extracted from all s...

Varicella zoster virus lies dormant in the dorsal root ganglia after symptomatic chicken pox infection, usually in childhood. If the virus reactivates in the trigeminal ganglia, it can cause varicella zoster ophthalmicus, which can have severe ocular complications. We report a case of a 73-year-old woman in severe immunosuppression due to treatment with mycophenolate mofetil, glucocorticosteroi...

A 21-month-old girl with neuroblastoma developed chronic verrucous Oka strain varicella-zoster infection during chemotherapy. Virus isolated from the patient demonstrated high-level acyclovir resistance, and its thymidine kinase had no in vitro enzymatic activity. After foscarnet therapy, she underwent stem cell transplantation without varicella reactivation. This is only the second reported ca...

Primary varicella-zoster virus infection in children with haematological malignancy is a life threatening disease. In one year, there were 10 cases of varicella and 2 cases of zoster among these children as well as 5 mothers who were accompanying their children who developed varicella in the oncology ward. Two children died of fulminating disease despite aggressive antiviral and supportive trea...