2012 Volume 122 Issue 3 Pages 619-623
There were 70 documented cases (64 patients) of herpes zoster among HIV-1 infected patients at the Dermatology Clinic and the Laboratory Medicine Department at the Tokyo Medical Hospital between May, 2004 and December, 2008. These cases accounted for 3.3% of all herpes zoster patients. The majority of the cases were male (94.3%) in their 20s and the 30s, with the mean age of 32.6 years. The peak CD4 positive T cell count at a zoster event was in the 300s, and there were no differences between patients who received HAART and those who did not. Of the patients, 18.8% had experienced recurrent zoster events. According to previous studies in Japan, the severity of zoster events in HIV-1 infected patients is typically greater than in non-infected patients. However, our analysis showed that there were no significant differences between HIV-1 infected patients and non-infected patients in terms of the severity of herpes zoster events.
