• Abbas Rasi, Ashkan Heshmatzade Behzadi, Mehrshad Rabet, Jaleh Hassanloo, Yasamin Honarbakhsh, Nasir Dehghan, and Seyed Kamran Kamrava.
• Hazrat-e-Rasul Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services, Tehran, Iran.
• J Infect Dev Ctries. 2010 Nov 1;4(11):754-60.

IntroductionVarious treatments have been used to manage post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN). Safe and effective therapies to prevent PHN are needed.MethodologyA clinical trial involving 152 patients diagnosed with acute herpes Zoster (HZ) was conducted to determine whether short-course acyclovir therapy (800 mg five times a day for four days) can alleviate HZ-associated pain and prevent post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN).  The patients were divided into two groups: Group 1 had a rash with a duration of less than 72 hours and Group 2 had a rash with a duration of more than 72 hours. To assess PHN, the patients categorized and assessed the severity of their symptoms using a four-point verbal rating scale (VRS).ResultsBy the fourth week, 134 out of 152 patients (88.2%) had complete pain response (CPR). Of these, 68 patients (89.5%) were from Group 1 and 66 from Group 2 (86.8%). After four weeks, the mean VRS scores had changed significantly in both groups compared to the scores at the beginning of study (p = 0.001), but there was no difference between the two groups (0.88 ± 0.66 Vs. 0.94 ± 0.72; p = 0.66) After three months no differences were observed in the treatment results between the two groups (0.51 ± 0.13 Vs.0.54 ± 0.19; p = 0.77).ConclusionShort-course acyclovir therapy is an effective treatment for zoster and its efficacy in patients with a rash duration of more than 72 hours is similar to that in patients with rash duration of less than 72 hours.

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