Management of Polyomaviruses Infection

E. Management

Because of the invariably fatal outcome of PML, various antiviral drugs have been tried. The only drug that may have had an effect is cytarabine. Reports have been published on 8 laboratory confirmed cases of PML treated with cytarabine. Long-term improvement was seen in 2 patients. In another person, there was a dramatic response to therapy within 24 hours but this was not maintained. The rapid progression of the disease was halted in a fourth patient but the neurological damage was severe. The remaining 4 individuals did not show any improvement. One should also consider relaxing any immunosuppression regimes in such patients.