Diagnóstico laboratorial da infec？？o pelo vírus herpes simples (HSV) em pacientes transplantados e n？o-transplantados

background: herpes simplex virus (hsv) is divided in two serotypes (hsv-1 and hsv-2) responsible for labial end genital herpes, respectively. although the infection caused by hsv has a rapid course, this agent is frequently related to complications in immunocompromised patient？s treatment, like transplanted individuals as an opportunistic agent. objectives: to compare and evaluate three current diagnosis techniques for hsv diagnosis in transplanted and non-transplanted patients. material and methods: 84 consecutive clinical samples from 47 transplanted and 37 non-transplanted individuals were collected from june 2001 to july 2002, being simultaneously submitted to nested multiplex pcr (nmpcr), multiplex pcr (mpcr) and viral isolation (vi) in vero cells. results: 33.3%(28/84) samples were hsv-positive by vi, 35.4%(29/84) by mpcr and 42.8%(36/84) by nmpcr. 85.7% (24/28) samples were characterized as hsv-1 by the direct immunofluorescence technique (dif), 86.2%(25/29) by mpcr and 88.9%(32/36) by nmpcr. 4.8%(4/84) samples were characterized as hsv-2 by the three techniques. there was no significant difference regarding hsv diagnosis among the techniques (p = 0.38), although nmpcr detected more samples from transplanted patients (p = 0.05). conclusion: although the three techniques presented similar performances, the nmpcr revealed to be an useful tool for transplanted patients or those under antiviral treatment, where a low viral load in their samples is expected.