New approaches to the therapy of HSV infections.

Two recent studies have demonstrated single-day regimens of high-dose antiviral therapy (famciclovir 1000 mg twice daily for genital herpes, and famciclovir 1500 mg single dose for herpes labialis) to be effective episodic treatment strategies. Both have the potential to improve patient compliance and therapeutic satisfaction. Patient-initiated episodic therapy (PIE) regimens such as these may improve the time to treatment initiation, which can halt lesion development: PIE allows antiviral drugs to be administered in the narrow therapeutic window that occurs early in the course of a herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection episode. This review article discusses short-course antiviral therapy, which may offer an effective alternative to traditional episodic or suppressive antiviral regimens for HSV-related disease outbreaks.