[Mollaret meningitis. Is the riddle finally solved?].

Mollaret's meningitis is characterised by recurrent aseptic meningitis in otherwise healthy persons. It has recently been shown that most cases are caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). In this article we describe five women, age 33-57 years, with altogether 12 episodes of virus-culture negative aseptic meningitis, where polymerase chain reaction detected HSV-2 in samples of cerebrospinal fluid. Only three patients had a medical history of previous genital herpes infection. None of our patients has been offered prophylactic antiviral treatment.