Post-total knee arthroplasty herpes zoster activation

Abstract

Herpes zoster is a clinical manifestation of reactivation of varicella-zoster virus (VZV) that lies dormant in the dorsal root ganglia after a past primary infection. It can be associated with severe pain, a crop of vesicles in typical dermatomal distribution but the neuralgic pain persists long, making the patient uncomfortable and often disturbing patient's sleep. There are cases reported after trauma or post surgeries that are mainly related to organ transplant or malignancy. In the literature, there is a solitary report of VZV infection along the sciatic nerve post ipsilateral hip and contralateral knee joint replacement. Here, we report a VZV infection in post knee replacement setting along the L2-3 dermatomal distribution.

Keywords: general practice/family medicine; infections; tropical medicine (infectious disease).