A number of years ago when my daughter was receiving powerful anti-cancer drugs for treatment of neuroblastoma, she was exposed to chickenpox. My reaction was - "Big deal - she has a lot more serious things to worry about!" But I was wrong about this seemingly "harmless" childhood disease.
With her immunity suppressed by the chemotherapy drugs my 4-year-old had no ability to fight off what could have been fatal effects of the herpes virus that causes chickenpox, or in a somewhat different form causes shingles. It's my understanding that people with AIDS are also in jeopardy if exposed to the herpes virus. Fortunately, the exposure was identified in time for my daughter to receive an incredibly expensive (in 1977) injection of Zoster Immune Globulin within 24 hours and she never got the life-threatening chickenpox.
I'm aware of the use of acyclovir to ameliorate the effects of the herpes virus and to somewhat shorten the course of an outbreak, but is there anything else currently available to help cancer and AIDS patients?
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I think your question is about treatments for varicella-zoster infection. VZ virus (VZV) causes chicken pox and if reactivated later, shingles (or herpes zoster). There are two antiviral drugs available in the U.S. in 1994 for herpes virus infections. VZV is in the herpesvirus family. One is acyclovir (Zovirax) and the other is Famvir (I can't remember the generic name right now). As with your daugher in 1977, immune globulin is also used in some cases, though I think less frequently now that these newer antiviral drugs are available. The specifics vary with the patient.
Hope that's the answer you were looking for. Eliot
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Dermatology Online: Served by Eliot N. Mostow, MD, MPH
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