Abstract
BackgroundHerpes zoster is an important problem of public health especially among the elderly in Spain.MethodsA population-based retrospective epidemiological study to estimate the burden of herpes zoster requiring hospitalization in the Canary Islands, Spain was conducted by using data from the national surveillance system for hospital data, Conjunto Mínimo Básico de Datos. Records of all patients admitted to hospital with a diagnosis of herpes zoster in any position and cases of primary diagnosis (ICD-9-MC codes 053.0–053.9) during a 10-year period (2005–2014), were selected.ResultsA total of 1088 hospitalizations with a primary or secondary diagnosis of herpes zoster were identified during the study period. Annually there were 6.99 hospitalizations by herpes zoster per 100,000 population. It increases with age reaching a maximum in persons ≥85 years of age (43.98 admissions per 100,000). Average length of hospitalization was 16 days and 73 patients died, with a case-fatality rate of 4.03%. In 22% of the cases hospitalized, herpes zoster was the primary diagnosis.ConclusionThe hospitalization burden of herpes zoster in adults in the Canary Islands was still important during the last decade and justify the implementation of preventive measures, like vaccination in the elderly or other high risk groups to reduce the most severe cases of the disease.
Highlights
Herpes zoster is an important problem of public health especially among the elderly in Spain
A total of 1088 hospital discharges related to herpes zoster infection were reported during the 10-year study period in the Canary Islands, with an annual crude hospitalization rate of 5.35 (95%-Confidence interval (CI) 5.03–5.67) cases per 100,000 inhabitants
Analysis restricting to 263 herpes zoster cases registered in the first diagnostic position only were reported in Additional file 1: Table S1 yielding a total hospitalization rate of 1.29 (95%-CI = 1.14–1.45) hospitalizations in the first diagnostic position per 100,000 inhabitants of the Canary Islands (1.54, 95%-CI = 1.35–1.74 per 100,000 inhabitants after ager standardization)
Summary
Herpes zoster is an important problem of public health especially among the elderly in Spain. It is estimated that the 15% of the global population will suffer from least one episode of herpes zoster during their lifetime [1]. With an increase in age, loss of cell-mediated immunity and immunosenescence, complications of herpes-zoster may occur [2, 3], being post-herpetic neuralgia the most frequent and limititing [4, 5], causing important pain to 15–40% of the patients majorly impacting quality of life [3, 6]. The objective of this study was to report the hospitalization burden related to herpes zoster infection in the Canary Islands from 2005 to 2014 García-Rojas et al BMC Infectious Diseases (2017) 17:586 not subject to mayor under-diagnosis and give a good spectrum of the most severe cases of the disease. [8].
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