Source: Pancreas  |  Posted 6 years ago

By Ed Susman

WASHINGTON, DC -- December 22, 2005 -- A single-day oral antiviral regimen with famciclovir stops the progression and severity of genital herpes outbreaks, researchers reported here at the 45[^]th[] Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).

"Conventional episodic therapy for genital herpes requires taking 3 to 5 days of treatment," said Fred Aoki, MD, professor of medicine, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. "This study was successful in demonstrating that a single-day treatment was effective and well tolerated."

In the multicenter, multinational, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of famciclovir, 163 patients took a 1-g dose of famciclovir twice in 1 day. Another group of 166 patients took placebo.

Study subjects were told to begin treatment within 6 hours after they experienced the prodromal symptoms that accompany herpes outbreaks or when they first became aware of genital herpes lesions. Subjects were required to return to the clinic for evaluation within 24 hours of initiating therapy and on days 2 and day 3. Patients with persistent lesions were to return for visits on days 4 and 5, and then every other day until all lesions healed, or until day 14.

In his presentation on December 18[^]th[], Dr. Aoki said the findings consistently showed that patients taking famciclovir did better than those on placebo.

Importantly, he said, patients taking famciclovir healed faster. The average placebo patient required 6.1 days for the lesions to heal, compared with 4.3 days for those on famciclovir (P < .001).

"Famciclovir doubled the likelihood that vesicular lesions would not develop during a genital herpes recurrence," Dr. Aoki said. About 12.7% of the patients on placebo experienced lack of these lesions emerging, but 23.3% of those on famciclovir had similar experiences (P = .003).

All lesional symptoms resolved faster in famciclovir-treated than placebo-treated patients, he said, and noted that among famciclovir patients the mean time to clearance of symptoms was 3.3 days compared with 5.4 days for those on placebo. "Those symptoms included burning, tingling, itching, tenderness, and pain," Dr. Aoki said.

He also noted that the improvement in outcomes came without an apparent cost in adverse events. He said adverse effects with placebo and famciclovir were similar, mild, and infrequent.

"These findings may provide physicians with a new, convenient treatment option for managing patients with recurrent genital herpes," Dr. Aoki concluded.

[Presentation title: Patient-Initiated High-Dose Oral Famciclovir for 1 Day Shortens the Duration of Recurrent Genital Herpes Lesions. Abstract V-1389]