Neonatal Herpes Simplex – Board-Style Questions

What this deck covers

Neonatal Herpes Simplex in 18 board-style clinical cases with worked explanations. Each case gives you a clinical vignette, four options, the correct answer, and an explanation of why each of the other three is wrong, with the guideline or textbook it follows named on the answer.

Board-style teaching questions for paediatricians and trainees preparing for paediatric board, MRCPCH and licensing examinations. Written from published guidelines and standard paediatric textbooks, with the source named on every answer.

The 18 cases, in order

1. When it appears
2. Blisters only
3. How long
4. Why the drip
5. Seizures at two weeks
6. The worst form
7. A clue in the blood
8. The work-up
9. PCR on day one
10. After the drip
11. Monitoring at home
12. Which mother
13. Never had a cold sore
14. A recurrent lesion at birth
15. Where the monitor was
16. A cold sore in the family
17. Vesicles on the areola
18. The eye

Diagnoses and management options tested

Across the 18 cases you are asked to choose between options such as: Within the first twenty-four hours in most babies, Disseminated disease, A fourteen-day intravenous antiviral course, Because oral antivirals are not made for babies, Skin, eye and mouth disease, Spread to the liver, lungs and blood, A very high liver transaminase, A single swab from one vesicle, sent for culture, Stop the aciclovir, since the PCR is negative, Six months of oral suppression after the drip, His liver enzymes every week, Recurrent lesions present at delivery, The baby must have caught it from a hospital visitor, No testing, since recurrent lesions carry no risk.

Clinical pearls from this deck

• A baby well at a week old has not escaped neonatal herpes.
• Blisters, a well baby and clean spinal fluid: the localised form.
• Localised disease: two weeks through the vein.
• A few blisters in a newborn are the visible edge of a dangerous virus.
• Seizures, a positive spinal fluid and no rash: the brain-only form.
• The disseminated form kills most; the brain form disables most.

Work through the deck once for recognition, then again a week later to test yourself — each question gives the answer and explains why every other option fails.

More from this system: all Neonatology case decks · pediatric reference values.