Recombinant zoster vaccine reduces risk of mortality, stroke, heart attack

Key takeaways:

• Patients who received the recombinant zoster vaccine experienced lower risks for mortality vs. the unvaccinated.
• A lower risk of myocardial infarction was also observed.

Compared with unvaccinated individuals, the recombinant zoster vaccine reduces the 3-year risk for mortality and myocardial infarction among individuals aged 50 to 65 years, according to a study.

“Studies report that herpes zoster increases the risk of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events, including stroke and myocardial infarction,” Matthew F. Helm, MD, of the department of dermatology at Penn State Health, and colleagues wrote. “Herpes zoster vaccination’s impact on these events is understudied.”

To better understand how the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) affects mortality and risks for other serious health events, the authors conducted a retrospective cohort analysis using the TriNetX database.

More than 7.2 million patients were in a control cohort and did not receive the RZV, while

14,578 patients were fully vaccinated with the RZV, and with 252,194 patients were fully vaccinated with the zoster vaccine live (ZVL) and 7,222,905.

Matched cohorts (n = 7,657) of patients aged 50 to 65 years showed that the RZV cohort experienced lower risks for mortality (aRR = 0.7; 95% CI, 0.57-0.88) and myocardial infarction (aRR = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.55-0.96), after propensity score matching. However, the vaccinated groups experienced a similar risk for stroke (aRR = 0.97; 95% CI, 0.75-1.26) compared with the unvaccinated cohort.

When compared to the group that received the zoster vaccine live, those who received the RZV experienced a 3-year reduced risk of mortality (aRR = 0.84; 95% CI, 0.74-0.95).

Additionally, patients with hyperlipidemia who received RZV had a smaller risk of mortality (aRR = 0.5; 95% CI, 0.37, 0.67), but a similar risk of stroke (aRR = 1.28; 95% CI, 0.87-1.87) and myocardial infarction (aRR = 1.8; 95% CI, 1.08-2.99).

“This retrospective cohort study suggests that zoster vaccination, specifically RZV, reduces the 3-year risk for myocardial infarction for those aged 50-60,” the authors wrote. “As the adult population in the U.S. ages, the risk for herpes zoster will compound and vaccination will increasingly become an important public health and policy topic.”