Influenza vaccination during orthopedic hospitalization did not increase infection risk
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Published results showed no substantial increased risk of infection-related outcomes among patients who received influenza vaccination during hospitalization for orthopedic surgery.
Ronald A. Navarro, MD, and colleagues stratified patients 6 months of age or older who were hospitalized for an orthopedic surgery between Sept. 1, 2011, and March 31, 2014, into groups based on whether they received a vaccine during their inpatient stay (group 1; n=2,395) or if they went unvaccinated during that influenza season, were vaccinated before the admission or more than 7 days after discharge from the hospital (group 2; n=21,708). Researchers assessed the association between influenza vaccination during an inpatient stay for orthopedic surgery and rates of readmission, ED visits, outpatient visits, fever and evaluations for infections less than 7 days after discharge.
After propensity score matching to adjust for confounding factors, researchers included 2,376 patients in both groups. Results showed no statistically significant increase in readmission, ED visits, fever or clinical workups for infection among patients vaccinated during an inpatient stay for orthopedic surgery compared with patients who were not vaccinated during hospitalization. However, researchers found a marginally increased risk of outpatient visits in the 7 days after discharge.
“This work was a labor of love to get published. This was important to get to the orthopedic community for the focused readership. It gives the orthopedic surgeon information to comfort them as they vaccinate during the perioperative period, and as more patients go home the same day, these findings are able to be applied to that setting,” Navarro told Healio. “We cannot say the findings are directly applicable to the pandemic-related vaccine efforts as it is a different vaccine, but any paper on vaccine safety helps doctors, surgeons, allied providers and patients become more comfortable with vaccine administration.”
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