Figure 2. Effect of topical dexamethasone treatment during the first 8 d of HSV-1 infection on mouse survival.

Mouse corneas were infected with 10³ PFU HSV-1. Starting at 2 h p.i., mice were topically treated with DEX or VEH onto their corneas for 8 d. Mouse death and survival events were recorded until tissue collection at 30 d p.i. The calculated survival proportions at the different time points under both treatments were fitted in survival curves for comparison. By the log-rank (Mantel-Cox) test, both survival curves were found significantly different (P < 0.05). Analysis began with n = 33 mice for the HSV-1⁺ VEH group and n = 34 mice for HSV-1⁺ DEX group, from 7 independent experiments).