Safety of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine in adolescents and adults in the vaccine safety Datalink

Background: Measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) is routinely administered to children; however, adolescents and adults may receive MMR for various reasons. Safety studies in adolescents and adults are limited. We report on safety of MMR in this age group in the Vaccine Safety Datalink.Methods: We included adolescents (aged 9-17 years) and adults (aged >= 18 years) who received >= 1 dose of MMR from January 1, 2010-December 31, 2018. Pre-specified outcomes were identified by diagnosis codes. Clinically serious outcomes included anaphylaxis, encephalitis/myelitis, Guillain-Barre syndrome, immune thrombocytopenia, meningitis, and seizure. Non-serious outcomes were allergic reaction, arthropathy, fever, injection site reaction, lymphadenopathy, non-specific reaction, parotitis, rash, and syncope. All serious outcomes underwent medical record review. Outcome-specific incidence was calcu-lated in pre-defined post-vaccination windows. A self-controlled risk interval design was used to deter-mine the relative risk of each outcome in a risk window after vaccination compared to a more distal control window.Results: During the study period, 276,327 MMR doses were administered to adolescents and adults. Mean age of vaccinees was 34.8 years; 65.8 % were female; 53.2 % of doses were administered simultaneously with >= 1 other vaccine. Serious outcomes were rare, with incidence <= 6 per 100,000 doses for each out-come assessed, and none had a significant elevation in incidence during the risk window compared to the control window. Incidence of non-serious outcomes per 100,000 doses ranged from 3.4 for parotitis to 263.0 for arthropathy. Other common outcomes included injection site reaction and rash (157.0 and 112.9 per 100,000 doses, respectively). Significantly more outcomes were observed during the risk win-dow compared to the control window for all non-serious outcomes except parotitis. Some variability was observed by sex and age group.Conclusion: Serious outcomes after MMR are rare in adolescents and adults, but vaccinees should be counseled regarding anticipated local and systemic non-serious adverse events.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study aimed to investigate the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) in adolescents and adults. The results showed that serious adverse events after MMR were rare in this age group, but individuals should be informed about the potential occurrence of local and systemic non-serious adverse events.