The retrospective cohort study involved patients aged 50 years or older from the US TriNetX database. Patients received a diagnosis of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease between January 1, 2018, and January 1, 2024.
Exclusion criteria were a diagnosis of autoimmune disease or previous herpes zoster complications before the index date. Researchers used propensity score matching to balance demographics and comorbidities, such as age, sex, race, cigarette smoking, and disease comorbidities.
Overall, the study included 275,304 patients vaccinated for herpes zoster and 275,304 unvaccinated patients. The total population was about 60% men, 76% White, and 11% Black.
Results showed herpes zoster vaccination lowered the risk for major adverse cardiac events (hazard ratio [HR], 0.54; 95% CI, 0.52-0.55), all-cause mortality (HR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.38-0.41), incident myocardial infarction (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.70-0.76), and stroke (HR, 0.73; 95% CI, 0.70-0.77).
The risks for incident venous thromboembolism (HR, 0.63; 95% CI, 0.60-0.67), heart failure (HR, 0.67; 95% CI, 0.62-0.73), and atrial fibrillation or flutter (HR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.67-0.72) were also reduced in the vaccination group.
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