Patients
pharyngitis, fever
PHARYNGITIS, DISEASE PROGRESSION
The current study was registered to clinicaltrials.gov before the initiation of patient enrollment. From June 2019 to July 2022, a total of 54 patients were randomized, 25 patients for the study group and 29 patients for the control group. After the completion of autologous HSCT of the last enrolled patients, data were analyzed.All randomized patients were negative for HSV IgM and positive for HSV IgG. Three patients dropped out after randomization and before treatment initiation. One patient from the control group withdrew consent before the initiation of the HSCT procedure. Another patient from the study group experienced rapid disease progression while waiting for admission; thus, autologous HSCT was cancelled. The other patient was allocated to the study group but did not take acyclovir tablets during the HSCT period due to a communication error. In addition, two patients who were allocated to the control group received acyclovir before neutrophil engraftment for empirical therapeutic purposes due to pharyngitis and fever. Thus, the per-protocol analysis was conducted using 49 patients who completed autologous HSCT without any violation (Fig. 
 A CONSORT diagram
Patient characteristics