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Natural history of genital herpes simplex virus type 1 infection
Rebecca Engelberg1, David Carrell, Elizabeth Krantz
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Background:
Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) has been increasingly reported as a cause of genital herpes, yet there have been few studies on the long-term natural history of this infection. GOAL The goal was to examine the clinical course of genital HSV-1 infection.
Study Design:
This was a cohort study of patients presenting with culture-proven primary genital HSV-1 infection.
Results:
The median follow-up of the 77 patients was 736 days. The overall rate of recurrences was 1.3/year in the first year of infection, decreasing to 0.7/year in the second year. In the first year of infection, 43% of study patients did not have a recurrence. In the second year of infection, 67% of study patients did not have a recurrence.
Conclusion:
Genital HSV-1 recurs infrequently in most patients, and the rate decreases further in the subsequent years of infection. Because the prognoses of genital HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections differ, determination of the viral type is important for patient counseling.