Acyclovir therapy for angioedema and chronic urticaria.

Angioedema and chronic urticaria result from a variety of causes. Our purpose was to study the therapeutic effect of oral acyclovir on selected patients, by observing the effect of acyclovir in a dosage of from 100 mg every six hours to 800 mg every four hours in fourteen patients with angioedema or chronic urticaria. Five of twelve patients with chronic urticaria and one patient each with hereditary angioedema and idiopathic angioedema noted complete remission with acyclovir therapy. Discontinuation of the acyclovir resulted in reappearance of the hives. Since these patients had high antibody titers to either herpes simplex virus or Epstein-Barr virus, we conclude that acyclovir produced its therapeutic effect by suppressing a circulating viral antigen.