TABLE 2.

Correlation between HSV-1 DNA level, severity of disease, and outcome^a

DNA level	Age (yr)	Duration of disease (days)	Duration of acyclovir treatment (days)	No. (%) of patients with lesion de- tected by CT	No. (%) of patients with reduced level of consciousness	No. (%) of patients with the following outcomeb
						Healthy	Mild or moderate level of im- pairment	Severe level of impairment or death
>100 copies/μl	45.4 ± 18.9	6.5 ± 3	1.2 ± 1	9 (100)	9 (100)	0	7 (77.8)	2 (22.2)
<100 copies/μl	25.2 ± 19	3.8 ± 3.2	1.3 ± 1.6	1 (14.86)	3 (42.9)	6 (85.7)	1 (14.3)	0
P value	0.0221c	0.0624c	0.869c	0.000874d	0.019d

^aDuration of disease is the number of days that the patients were ill prior to obtaining the CSF specimen. Time of acyclovir treatment is the number of days that the patient had been treated prior to obtaining the CSF specimen. Reduced level of consciousness indicates the number of patients with a Glasgow Coma Scale score of <15 (see footnote a of Table 1). 

^bThe P value for outcome was 0.0021 (Fisher’s exact test). 

^cBased on Wilcoxon rank sum test. 

^dBased on Fisher’s exact test.