EFFICACY OF TRANSFER-FACTOR IN TREATING PATIENTS WITH RECURRENT OCULAR HERPES INFECTIONS

Recurrent ocular herpes is an insoluble problem for the clinician. As cellular immunity plays an important role in controlling herpes relaps es, and other studies have shown the efficacy of HSV-specific transfer factor (TF) for the treatment of herpes patients, an open clinical tr ial was undertaken in 134 patients (71 keratitis, 29 kerato-uveitis, 3 4 uveitis) suffering from recurrent ocular herpetic infections. The me an duration of the treatment was 358 days, and the entire follow-up pe riod 189121 before, and 64062 days after TF treatment. The cell-mediat ed immune response to the viral antigens, evaluated by the lymphocyte stimulation test (LST) and the leucocyte migration test (LMT) (P<0.001 ), was significantly increased by the TF treatment. The total number o f relapses was decreased significantly during/after TF treatment, drop ping from 832 before, to 89 after treatment, whereas the cumulative re lapse index (RT) dropped, during the same period, from 13.2 to 4.17 (P <0.0001). No side effects were observed. It is concluded that patients with relapsing ocular herpes can benefit from treatment with HSV-spec ific TF.