Background: Shingles is caused by the Varicella-Zoster virus. The duration of hospitalization prolong will increase the risk of superinfection, costs for treatment, and quality of life. Objectives: (1) To describe clinical manifestations of herpes zoster inpatients at Can Tho Dermato-Venereology Hospital. (2) To survey some related factors related to the duration of hospitalization of herpes zoster by He-Ne laser therapy at Can Tho Dermato-Venereology Hospital. Materials and methods: the cross-sectional study on all shingles patients admitted to Can Tho Dermato-Venereology Hospital during the study period. Results: The proportion of group patients >60 years old was 54.9% higher than the group of patients ≤60 with 45.1%. Most shingles patients had secondary school degrees with 69%. The rate of patients admitted to the hospital early ≤5 days after symptom onset was 72.6%. Patients hospitalized for ≤7 days accounted for 77%. Patients with mild illness had the highest rate with 58.4%, and the rate of medium and severe illness with 36.3% and 5.3% respectively. Most patients had superinfection with 72.6%. The group of patients admitted to the hospital early ≤5 days had a shorter duration of hospitalization than the group of patients admitted to the hospital late after 5 days. In the patient's group with superinfection and more severe disease, the duration of hospitalization was longer than in the patient’s group without superinfection and the severity of the disease was milder. All differences were statistically significant, p<0.05. Conclusion: Early treatment with He-Ne laser therapy helps to improve the severity of the disease and the state of superinfection and shorten the patient's hospital stay.

Background: Shingles is a common skin infection, caused by the latent Varicella zoster virus in the paraspinal cranial nerve ganglia, when there are favorable factors such as immunosuppression makes the virus active again. The disease greatly affects the patient's quality of life. Objectives: Survey to determine clinical manifestations, correlative factors and evaluate the results of topical treatment of herpes zoster with He-Ne laser combination at Can Tho DermatoVenereology Hospital in 2021. Methods: Cross-sectional descriptive study with 75 Zona patients who were treated according to the usual regimen and combined with local He-Ne laser at Can Tho Dermato-Venereology Hospital. Results: The disease that occurs in the age group over 60 years old is the most common (56%). Pain was found in 100% of patients. The vesicle lesions accounted for the highest rate (84%), the most commonly affected area was trunk 38.7%. Mild level accounted for 57.3%. The group of patients with more than 5 days of illness had a longer hospital stay (42.9%). After treatment with He-Ne laser, 66.7% had good treatment results. Conclusions: Herpes zoster disease occurs at any age, but mainly in the elderly with vesicles and pain in most of the patients, commonly on the trunk and head-face-neck area. Attention should be paid to the time before admission, the state of co-infection because they reduce the response to treatment. The combination of He-Ne laser with conventional regimens helped to cure and effectively reduce pain in Herpes Zoster patients.