Effectiveness of the Recombinant Zoster Vaccine for Herpes Zoster Ophthalmicus in the United States

Purpose: To examine the effectiveness of the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) for preventing herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO) in the general United States population. Design: Retrospective, observational cohort study. Participants: Individuals enrolled in the OptumLabs Data Warehouse (OLDW; OptumLabs, Cambridge, MA) who were age eligible for herpes zoster (HZ) vaccination (>50 years of age) from 2018 through 2019. The OLDW is a longitudinal, de-identified administrative claims and electronic health record database of patients in the United States with commercial insurance, Medicare Part D, or Medicare Advantage Methods: Patients were required to have 365 days or more of continuous enrollment to be eligible. Those with a diagnosis code of HZ or an immunocompromising condition within 1 year before study inclusion were excluded. Vaccination with the RZV was ascertained by Current Procedural Terminology codes, and HZO was ascertained by International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, codes. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate the hazard ratio of HZO associated with RZV, and inverse-probability weighting was used to control for confounding. Vaccine effectiveness was calculated from hazard ratios. Main Outcome Measures: Incidence of HZO in vaccinated versus unvaccinated person-times and vaccine effectiveness were assessed. Results: From January 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019, a total of 4 842 579 individuals were included in this study. One hundred seventy-seven thousand two hundred eighty-nine (3.7%) received 2 valid doses of RZV. The incidence rate of HZO was 25.5 cases (95% confidence interval [CI], 17.4-35.8 cases) per 100 000 person -years in the vaccinated group compared with 76.7 cases (95% CI, 74.7-78.7 cases) in the unvaccinated group. The overall adjusted effectiveness of RZV against HZO was 89.1% (95% CI, 82.9%-93.0%). Conclusions: The effectiveness of RZV against HZO in individuals 50 years of age and older is high in a clinical setting. However, the low vaccination rate in this study highlights the public health need to in-crease HZV use. Ophthalmologists can play an important role in recommending vaccination to eligible patients. Ophthalmology 2021;128:1699-1707 2021 by the American Academy of Ophthalmology

Automated summary

The study examined the effectiveness of the recombinant zoster vaccine in preventing herpes zoster ophthalmicus in the US population, finding a high effectiveness rate of 89.1%. The low vaccination rate highlighted the need to increase vaccine utilization for public health benefit, with ophthalmologists playing a key role in recommending vaccination to eligible patients.