A prognostic score for postherpetic neuralgia in ambulatory patients

The main objective was to develop a scoring system for easy use by the phys ician in daily clinical practice in deciding the appropriate treatment for his herpes tester patient. Data from 635 patients who did not receive antiv iral therapy were included in this analysis. Of these, 131 developed posthe rpetic neuralgia (PHN). Of the 29 variables tested univariately in this stu dy, 15 showed a significant correlation with the incidence of PHN, but only six proved to contribute to the overall predictive power in the multivaria te approach. Using two independent approaches, the model showed a very sati sfactory performance in the validation sample. Patients without acute pain rarely developed PHN, In those with acute pain, being female, being over 50 years of age, having more than 50 lesions, having lesions of a hemorrhagic nature, having cranial or sacral localisation of the rash or having pain i n the prodromal phase proved to be significant, multivariate factors, An ea sy-to-use scoring system used in a risk graph is proposed, These data shoul d be useful in the individual treatment decision as well as in the design a nd analysis of therapeutic trials in herpes zoster.