Treatment of Human Herpes Simplex Keratitis With Idoxuridine

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Abstract
Introduction The original report of Kaufman et al,1describing treatment of human herpes simplex keratitis with idoxuridine (5-iodo-2′-deoxyuridine, IDU) was followed by a series of publications by other workers which provided further evaluation of this drug. The majority of these publications, which were reviewed in an earlier paper,2described uncontrolled trials, but three reports3-5were concerned with studies which included controls in their evaluation of the effect of idoxuridine on herpetic keratitis. The uncontrolled trials largely confirmed the results of Kaufman et al, but the three studies which included controls were unable to show that treatment with idoxuridine was remarkably better than treatment with inert eye drops: Luntz and MacCallum,3in an open trial comparing idoxuridine with neomycin, treated 11 cases of dendritic ulcer with idoxuridine and 11 cases with neomycin and were unable to find any striking advantage for idoxuridine. In two double-blind controlled series,