Herpes simplex infection in acute myelogenous leukemia and other hematologic malignancies: a prospective study.

To better define the frequency and clinical characteristics of herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection in adult patients with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), the authors prospectively studied 29 patients undergoing remission induction chemotherapy with twice weekly throat wash cultures for an average of 25.3 days. Ten seropositive patients (34.5%) shed HSV at least once. Eight patients were asymptomatic. Two episodes of herpes labialis were severe and persistent, but no visceral dissemination was observed. Reactivation of HSV infections in AML patients presumably with marked immunosuppression occurs, but less frequently and more benignly than has been suggested. Daunomycin and cytosine arabinoside, which can inhibit HSV replication, may have accounted for this lower frequency of reactivation.