The microenvironment of vulvar skin in women with symptomatic and asymptomatic herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) infection

Background It is not known why some individuals infected with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV‐2), experience frequent recurrences, while most of those infected have a completely silent infection. Objective We wanted to study if local factors in the skin could explain this difference. Design 21 HSV‐2 seropositive patients, 10 with history of >8 clinical recurrences a year (symptomatics) and 11 without symptoms of genital herpes (asymptomatics) were included. All had to answer a questionnaire. With standardised methods, the skin temperature, pH, and the skin barrier function, expressed as transepidermal water loss (TEWL) and skin capacitance, were measured on labium majus and perineum. Culture for bacteria was performed from the same regions. Results and Conclusion No significant differences in terms of pH and skin barrier function were registered between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients. Asymptomatic patients had a tendency (0.06) to a higher colonisation with lactobacilli on labium majus than symptomatic patients.