Frequency of Herpes simplex virus in patients with Stroke by PCR

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) causes a wide range of pathologies in the human central nervous system (CNS) such as stroke. It was proposed that there is an association between HSV infection and stroke with different results reported by the researchers using different methods. This study aimed to investigate the frequency of HSV among stroke patient and control groups. We detected HSV in 28 stroke patients and 28 controls that admitted in Beheshti, Emam Reza, Rajaee and Emam Sajad Hospital in 2013 north of Iran. DNA was extracted from blood samples and the infection with HSV was examined by PCR technique. The results obtained by this study showed that 15(53.6%) out of 28 in patients were infected by HSV, while the number of control samples infected by this virus was 9(32.1%). Statistical analysis has shown that there is not any significant association between the frequency of HSV and stroke, while in other studies the significant association between HSV and stroke has been demonstrated. These contradictory results could be due to the use of different diagnosing techniques, sample type and epidemiological differences.