CONTROLLED (TRANS)DERMAL DELIVERY OF AN ANTIVIRAL AGENT (ACYCLOVIR) .1. AN INVIVO ANIMAL-MODEL FOR EFFICACY EVALUATION IN CUTANEOUS HSV-1 INFECTIONS

An in vivo animal model using hairless mice was developed for the study of the dose/flux-efficacy relationship of antiviral agents in cutaneous herpes simplex virus-1 infections. After cutaneous virus inoculation of the mice, acyclovir (ACV), a widely used antiviral agent, was transdermally delivered in a quantitatively controlled fashion. Virus was inoculated into the skin of the mice at a site distant from the dermal patch area and the pattern of the induced lesion development was evaluated in a novel way which enabled the distinction between topical and systemic antiviral drug efficacy. Plots of the antiviral efficacy vs. the drug delivery rate gave typical sigmoidal curves of relatively high reproducibility, thus demonstrating a unique example of a dose/flux-response relationship in local antiviral treatment.