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  • Shingrix Protects Against Herpes Zoster Ophthalmicus

    By Lynda Seminara
    Selected by Stephen D. McLeod, MD
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    Journal Highlights

    Ophthalmology, December 2021

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    The FDA approved the recombinant herpes zoster vaccine (Shingrix) in 2017. Although evidence has shown that it is more effective than its pre­decessor in preventing herpes zoster, data for either vaccine’s effect on herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO) are limited. To learn more, Lu et al. evaluated Shingrix’s ability to prevent HZO in the general U.S. population. Al­though the vaccination rate was relatively low in their study, results showed that the vaccine was 89.1% effective against HZO.

    For this study, the authors collected details from the OptumLabs Data Warehouse for patients 50 years or older who were eligible to receive Shingrix in 2018 or 2019. Patients were eligible for inclusion if they had at least 365 days of continuous enrollment in the data bank and excluded if they had a diagnosis of herpes zoster or any immune-compro­mising condition within a year before the study period. Shingrix vaccination was determined by CPT codes, and the diagnosis of HZO was established by ICD-10 codes. Cox proportional regression models were applied to estimate hazard ratios, and control of confounding factors was achieved by probability weighting. Main outcome measures were vaccine effectiveness and the comparative incidence of HZO person-time in vaccinated versus un­vaccinated participants.

    Among nearly 5 million eligible in­dividuals, 177,289 (3.7%) received two valid doses of Shingrix. The median age was 72 years and 64 years in the vacci­nated and unvaccinated cohort, respec­tively. The incidence rate of HZO per 100,000 person years was 25.5 cases in the vaccinated group, versus 76.7 cases in the unvaccinated group. The overall adjusted effectiveness of Shingrix for prevention of HZO was 89.1%.

    Although these results are promis­ing, the low vaccination rate highlights the public health need to boost vaccine uptake, the authors said.

    The original article can be found here.