Drugs Can Lower Risk of Genital Herpes Recurrence

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The effectiveness of oral antiviral drugs, commonly used to prevent genital herpes outbreaks in infected patients, has been confirmed by a review of published studies. The researchers evaluated acyclovir, valacyclovir, and famciclovir, sold under the trade names Zovirax, Valtrex and Famvir, respectively, in a "meta-analysis," a review strategy in which the results of several published trials are analyzed to obtain information from a larger total number of patients, which provides the ability to draw more statistically significant conclusions.