This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Oral acyclovir lowers recurrence rate of herpetic eye disease after PK up to 5 years
Cornea. 2009;28(8):843-845.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Patients with herpetic eye disease showed a statistically significant lower monthly recurrence rate after penetrating keratoplasty when receiving oral acyclovir rather than a placebo, a study found.
"The results of our study suggest that oral acyclovir prescribed during the first 6 months after PK for [herpetic eye disease] protects against clinically evident [herpetic eye disease] recurrences during the first 5 years following PK," the study authors said.
The study looked at 5-year results of a randomized trial of 68 patients with corneal opacities attributed to herpetic eye disease. Of those, 35 received 400 mg of acyclovir and 33 received placebo tablets for 6 months after PK. In a previous study of these patients, acyclovir was found to be effective in the first 2 years after PK.
At 5 years, 47 patients remained in the study — 24 from the acyclovir group and 23 from the placebo group. The researchers looked at graft survival, graft clarity, vascularization, infective events and rejection episodes.
The study found a statistically significant lower monthly event rate for the acyclovir group (P = .037) than the placebo group for cumulative clinically evident recurrences such as epithelial herpetic eye disease, stromal herpetic eye disease and keratouveitis.
No statistically significant difference in visual acuity was found between the oral acyclovir and placebo group. Rates of graft failure, vascularization, or glaucoma medication or surgery were "too low to analyze differences between the two groups," the authors said.