Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mindel, Adrian. et al. "Intravenous Acyclovir for the Treatment of Primary Genital Herpes."
Lancet (1982): 697-700. Print.
Genital infection with herpes simplex virus (HSV) is a major and increasing cause of
morbidity in many countries. The primary infection may be severe enough to hospitalize
patients, and recurrences are frequent. The virus has association with fatal diseases such as
carcinoma and other cancer-causing viruses. Patients were informed of the experiment, and some
were excluded from doing so due to age or pregnancy issues. Patients with a severe first attack of
genital herpes were treated with intravenous acyclovir in a randomized, double-blind, placebocontrolled trial. They were taken blood tests to check if other parts of the body was healthy. The
actual drug tests were repeated on the 4th and 7th days of the hospital stay. Patients conditions
were recorded daily for 7 days, and then twice weekly until healing occurred. 15 Patients
received the drug and 15 placebo, and the result showed faster rate of healing time for the
Acyclovir. The healing time, duration of vesicles, new lesion formation, viral shedding, and all
symptoms were significantly shorter in patients treated with acyclovir than in the controls.
Intravenous acyclovir seems to be a safe and effective therapy for patients having their first
attack of genital herpes.
This experiments follows Mindel's previous research on how Acyclovir is more effective
than inosine pranobex. He went farther and tried to see if Acyclovir is actually effective on firstattack genital herpes patients. With the same method and same procedure, Mindel successfully
proved the effectiveness of the drug. The procedure helps to support the validity of the research
because Mindel and contributors highlighted all the exceptions and details that directs the readers
to an answer with little or no assumptions. The paper includes specific details of the methods,
how patients were gathered, the routines, etc. Like the previous paper, one thing readers might be
unsure is the date of publication. Since this was published more than 20 years ago, current
researches might reject this experiment.
Wald, Anna. et al. "Frequent Genital Herpes Simplex Virus 2 Shedding in Immunocompetent
Women; Effect of Acyclovir Treatment." Journal of Clinical Investigation 99 (1997):
1092-97. Print.
The researchers performed a series of studies to evaluate the frequency and pattern of
HSV-2 reactivation using both viral isolation and HSV PCR assay. Viral shedding refers to the
expulsion and release of virus progeny following successful reproduction during a host-cell
infection. Herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) is the major cause of genital herpes and one of
the most frequent sexually transmitted diseases worldwide. For the research, four women with
clinical evidence of genital herpes were pilot trialed and were followed without antiviral therapy
for 4060 consecutive days. The tissues of HSV-2 area were removed to perform lesioning. After
the pilot trial, the results demonstrated a much higher frequency of HSV detection in genital
area. Then they evaluated whether HSV shedding was altered by antiviral chemotherapy. The 24
of 34 women who participated in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study took oral
acyclovir twice a day to evaluate the effect of antiviral therapy on subclinical shedding of HSV.
It turns out Acyclovir blocks HSV replication, but some of the viral genes have never been
detected during latent infections. If PCR positivity by acyclovir is shown, that would indicate the
presence of replicating potentially infectious virus on mucosal surfaces, which are linings of
mostly endodermal origin. The researchers used various methods (laboratory, in vivo, statistical)
to measure why there are HSV-2 shedding on mucosal surfaces and what are the pathogenic
mechanisms.
The wording of the paper was very hard to comprehend. The research they have done was
also confusing to follow because there were multiples of different experiments explained at the
same time. Most of the terms they used were unfamiliar to me, so I had to frequently look up the
words. They included many statistical data, but they failed to thoroughly explain what each table
was talking about. The research was well-planned. There was enough sample size, performing
different tests. The researchers used different methods to collect and analyze data so they are as
accurate as possible. They were still unsure of the pathogenic mechanisms causing HSV-2
shedding on mucosal surfaces after the research, but they did find that acyclovir slows down the
virus. It would have been nicer if the paper included explanations of general methods and terms
they included.