Management and Treatment of Herpes Simplex Keratitis

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) keratitis is a common and serious external ocular infection leading to unilateral blindness, primarily because of its recurrent nature. Despite considerable progress in the understanding of the virus at cellular and molecular levels, there is still a dilemma whether to use antiviral or steroids or both. The risk of using the steroids with its complication has to be weighed against its concomitant risk of progression without it. This dilemma can be reduced to a considerable extent if basic principles of virology and pathogenesis are kept in mind. Therefore, this article reviews current concepts of the virological and clinical aspects of HSV keratitis to enable a broad understanding of the disease process.