Shingles vaccine deemed effective in people with autoimmune disease

The herpes zoster vaccine reduces the risk of shingles in older adults with autoimmune disease, even if they are talking immune suppressants for their condition, but the protection begins to wane after about five years, a recent retrospective study found.

“There has been some concern that patients with autoimmune conditions might have a lower immunogenic response to herpes zoster vaccination, especially when treated with immunosuppressive medications such as glucocorticoids, according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

“Reassuringly, we found that in older patients with autoimmune diseases, the herpes zoster vaccine was effective in the short term, and that its effectiveness waned over time as reported in the Journal of Rheumatology.

The researchers used 2006-2013 Medicare data to calculate the risk of shingles among Medicare recipients who had an autoimmune disease and either did or did not receive the herpes zoster vaccine. All the patients had been enrolled in Medicare for at least 12 continuous months and had a diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, or rheumatoid arthritis.

The researchers matched 59,627 patients who received the herpes zoster vaccine with 119,254 unvaccinated patients, based on age, sex, race, calendar year, autoimmune disease type, and use of autoimmune drugs (biologics, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs, and glucocorticoids). During a follow-up of up to seven years, the researchers additionally accounted for comorbid medical conditions and concurrent medications each year.

The cohort, with an average age of 73.5 years in both groups, included 53.1 percent of adults with rheumatoid arthritis, 31.6 percent with psoriasis, 20.9 percent with inflammatory bowel disease, 4.7 percent with psoriatic arthritis, and 1.4 percent with ankylosing spondylitis.

Those who received the vaccine had a rate of 0.75 herpes zoster cases per 100 people during the first year, which rose to 1.25 cases per 100 people per year at the seventh year after vaccination. The rate among unvaccinated individuals stayed steady at approximately 1.3-1.7 cases per 100 people per year throughout the study period. These rates, as expected, were approximately 1.3-1.7 cases per 100 people per year throughout the study period. These rates, as expected, were approximately 50 percent higher than in the general population over age 70 without autoimmune disease.

Compared with unvaccinated individuals, vaccinated individuals had a reduced relative risk for shingles of 0.74-0.77 after adjustment for confounders, but the risk reduction remained statistically significant for only the first five years after vaccination.

The waning seen with the vaccine’s effectiveness “raises the possibility that patients might benefit from a booster vaccine at some point after initial vaccination, although no recommendation currently exists that would support such a practice,” the authors wrote.