Increased Risk of Anterior Uveitis Following Herpes Zoster

Abstract

To investigate the relationship between herpes zoster (HZ) and the subsequent risk of anterior uveitis during the year following an HZ diagnosis, using a nationwide population-based data set. This study used the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The study cohort consisted of 314,405 patients who received a diagnosis of HZ. The comparison cohort comprised 943,215 randomly selected patients. We tracked each patient for a 1-year period from their index ambulatory care visit to identify those who subsequently received a diagnosis of anterior uveitis. Stratified Cox proportional hazard regressions were performed to compute the adjusted 1-year uveitis-free survival rate, after adjusting for patient's age, sex, and geographic region and the presence of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, mumps, systemic lupus erythematosus, tuberculosis, ankylosing spondylitis, and human immunodeficiency syndrome/AIDS. During the 1-year follow-up period, 2515 (0.2%) of 1,257,620 sampled patients were diagnosed with anterior uveitis: 908 from the study cohort (0.3% of the patients with HZ) and 1607 from the comparison cohort (0.2% of patients without HZ). After adjusting for potential confounders, the hazard ratio of anterior uveitis during the 1-year follow-up period was 1.67 for patients with HZ (P < .001) compared with the comparison cohort. In addition, the hazard ratio of anterior uveitis for patients with HZ ophthalmicus was 13.06 (P < .001) when compared with patients without HZ. The risk of anterior uveitis increased in the year following a diagnosis of HZ. We suggest that patient eye condition be evaluated following diagnosis with HZ.