Skin & Allergy News - Acydovir cuts postherpetic neuralgia in pilot study.(Clinical Rounds)
More than 40 percent of people over 70 who develop shingles suffer from unrelenting pain for months to years after their initial symptoms ease, a condition known as postherpetic neuralgia (PHN). But a new study offers some hope. Researchers at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver gave antiviral therapy to 12 men and three women ages 53 to 82 who were suffering from moderate to severe nerve pain as a result of the shingles virus. tetracycline.
Most Popular
5 Regular Mistakes In Public Speaking
10 Jobs That Pay $30 An Hour
Eight Major Job Trends For 2008
Today’s Best Part-Time Jobs
Five Ways To Successfully Negotiate A Salary
Each patient received 10 mg of acyclovir (Zovirax) intravenously every eight hours for two weeks and then took a 1,000-mg tablet of valacyclovir (Valtrex) three times per day for a month. Patients rated their pain after each therapy, and then a month after the treatments ended. According to researchers, 53 percent of the patients reported a noticeable difference in their pain symptoms as a result of the treatment. Because this was an open study (no controls were used), the favorable response rate could be due to the placebo effect, acknowledge researchers, but they point out that such a degree of improvement is unlikely to occur spontaneously during a three-month observation period, especially in patients with PHN. Shingles, common in people age 50 and older, occurs when the herpes zoster virus, which lies dormant after a bout of the chicken pox, reemerges years later as a result of advancing age, illness, or, possibly, stress. The virus, which affects about 500,000 people each year, is characterized by a rash and/ or blisters that last for a week or more and burning, shooting pain, tingling and/or itching, usually on one side of the body or face.
COPYRIGHT 2006 Belvoir Media Group, LLC
COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group
