*Refer to Appendix 1 for the full list of participants Correspondence: Dr Gilles J Lavigne, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Universite de Montreal, 2900 Ed Montpetit, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3J7. Telephone 514-343-6005, e-mail [email protected] The Canadian Pain Society (CPS) hosted its first Study Day in Toronto in July 2014, attended by experts in various fields of pain management and rese...

Because of encouraging results when human leukocyte interferon was given for 5 to 7 days to treat early localized herpes zoster in patients with cancer, a small placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind trial was set up involving only 48 h of therapy. In this trial, there was no effect on acute pain or disease progression in the primary dermatome. However, a modest but significant effect was...

Patients with SLE carry an increased risk of infection that account for 11-23% of all hospitalized patients and 50% of all SLE patients develop major infections during the course of their disease. Globally Herpes Zoster has been reported as the most frequent viral infection in SLE patients. We determined the clinical spectrum, disease sequelae and the risk factors associated with the developmen...

BACKGROUND Herpes zoster (HZ) and postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) cause significant morbidity in older adults. The incidence and severity of HZ and PHN increase with age in association with an age-related decline in varicella-zoster virus (VZV)-specific cell-mediated immunity (VZV-CMI). VZV vaccines can boost VZV-CMI. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that VZV vaccination would protect older adu...

Jonathan Hutchinson (1865-6) was the first person to distinguish herpes zoster ophthalmicus from erysipelas, and he described 18 cases, one of which developed a third nerve palsy. Hutchinson stated that zoster never affected the cheek at all, but a few years later Head and Campbell (1900) described a case with affection of the mandibular branch; Paton (1926) reported a case with involvement of ...

The usual presentation of herpes zoster is as a self-limiting vesicular rash, often accompanied by post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN), its most common complication. However, herpes zoster can give rise to other complications, many of which have unusual presentations and serious sequelae. The incidence and burden of many of these less common complications are poorly understood. Ocular complications o...

Treatment strategies for herpes zoster infection include limiting viral replication with anti-infective agents as well as limiting associated acute and chronic neuropathic pain with a variety of analgesics. The author outlines currently available pharmacotherapeutic options, from first-line (eg, anti-infective agents, tricyclic antidepressants, anticonvulsants, opioid analgesics, and topical ag...

Michael C. Rowbotham, MD California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute Department of Anesthesia, UCSF School of Medicine San Francisco, Calif., USA Email: [email protected] P ostherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is t e most frequent chronic complication of herpes zoster ( hingles). Herpes zoster (HZ) represents a reactivation of the varicella zo ter vi us (VZV), a ubiquitous, highly neurotropic,...

Amantadine is an antiviral agent that specifically inhibits influenza A virus replication at a micromolar concentration. This drug is also very effective in the treatment of human Parkinson’s disease. Other important clinical applications of this agent have been studied recently, ranging from viral infections, e.g. herpes, herpes zoster neuralgia to granulomatosis and from neuroleptic extrapyra...