The Outcome of Patients with Herpes Zoster

Herpes zoster is a self-limited disorder which in most cases resolves without complication. In some patients herpes zoster produces complications during the acute phase of the disease, or even sequelae that may incapacitate the patient later. The most important among these is postherpetic neuralgia. The severity of the latter has stimulated the interest of many investigators, searching for ways of avoiding such undesirable sequelae by treating the acute phase. As a result there is, in the medical literature, a continuous stream of publications, devoted to the study of the results obtained in the treatment of herpes zoster. The good results reported by one author are not confirmed subsequently by others, and no single method of treatment has produced more than temporary enthusiasm. Recently, with the greater number of drugs that have increased the armamentarium of the physician, a greater number of different ap