Equine herpesvirus 1 (EHV-1) is an important equine pathogen that causes respiratory disease, abortion, neonatal death and paralysis. Although vaccines are available, they are not fully protective and outbreaks of disease may occur in vaccinated herds. Therefore, there is an urgent need for effective antiviral treatment. For three abortigenic (94P247, 97P70 and 99P96) and three neuropathogenic ...

AIMS To compare the efficacy, costs and safety of oral ganciclovir and valacyclovir in the prophylaxis of cytomegalovirus (CMV) disease in renal transplant (RTx) recipients at high risk of CMV disease. METHODS A total of 83 patients were prospectively randomized to 3-month treatment with either oral ganciclovir (3 g/day) or oral valacyclovir (8 g/day). A 3rd group received no prophylaxis. For...

Cancer suicide gene therapy affords the prospect of using the most optimal genes available because the source of the therapeutic gene is often irrelevant. Currently, there are numerous preclinical and clinical trials to develop tumor ablative therapies that use viral, yeast, or bacterial genes. One such gene, the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) thymidine kinase (TK) is widely used as a suic...

AIMS/BACKGROUND Varicella zoster virus retinitis (VZVR) in patients with AIDS, also called progressive outer retinal necrosis (PORN), is a necrotising viral retinitis which has resulted in blindness in most patients. The purposes of this study were to investigate the clinical course and visual outcome, and to determine if the choice of a systemic antiviral therapy affected the final visual outc...

To determine risk factors, frequency, time patterns, and outcome of ganciclovir-related neutropenia in allogeneic marrow transplant recipients, 278 consecutive patients receiving ganciclovir from engraftment until day 100 were studied. In this cohort, 159 patients (57%) had absolute neutrophil counts (ANC) less than 1,500/microL, 112 (41%) had an ANC less than 1,000/microL, 87 (31%) less than 7...

BACKGROUND Feline herpesvirus 1 (FHV-1) is a common cause of respiratory and ocular disease in cats. Especially in young kittens that have not yet reached the age of vaccination, but already lost maternal immunity, severe disease may occur. Therefore, there is a need for an effective antiviral treatment. In the present study, the efficacy of six antiviral drugs, i.e. acyclovir, ganciclovir, cid...

Cancer suicide gene therapy affords the prospect of using the most optimal genes available because the source of the therapeutic gene is often irrelevant. Currently, there are numerous preclinical and clinical trials to develop tumor ablative therapies that use viral, yeast, or bacterial genes. One such gene, the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) thymidine kinase (TK) is widely used as a suic...

Douglas Jabs and coworkers performed a prospective study of 122 patients with cytomegalovirus (CMV) retinitis (5). They collected blood and urine CMV isolates and performed sensitivity testing of the isolates. The interpretation of laboratory sensitivity testing of CMV strains is, however, problematic. CMV is known to be difficult to grow in cell culture, and indeed, only 60% of the cultures we...

Gene transfer with vectors derived from murine retroviruses is re stricted to cells which are proliferating and synthesizing DNA at the time of infection. This suggests that retroviral-mediated gene transfer might permit targeting of gene integration into malignant cells in organs com posed mainly of quiescent nonproliferating cells, such as in the brain. Accordingly, selective introduction of ...

Injury to atherosclerotic arteries induces the expression of growth regulatory genes that stimulate cellular proliferation and intimal formation. Intimal expansion has been reduced in vivo in nonatherosclerotic balloon-injured arteries by transfer of genes that inhibit cell proliferation. It is not known, however, whether vascular cell proliferation can be inhibited after injury in more extensi...