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Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ?50?years: A prospective study.

ABSTRACT: Herpes zoster (HZ) mainly affects older adults and immunocompromised individuals and is usually characterized by a unilateral painful skin rash. Its most common complication, postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), may cause chronic debilitating pain lasting for months or years. This study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01772160) aimed to estimate the HZ incidence and the proportion of HZ patients with PHN in the Italian population aged 50?years or older. From 2013 to 2016, HZ-patients were recruited when presenting with acute HZ at 75 reporting general practitioners in Italy, covering 43,875 persons aged ?50?years. PHN was defined as 'worst pain' rated???3 on the Zoster Brief Pain Inventory persisting or appearing over 90?days after rash onset. The overall HZ incidence rate per 1000 person-years (PY) was estimated as 6.46 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 5.99-6.95), increasing with age to 9.12/1000 PY (95% CI: 7.50-10.99) in 75-79?year-olds. Among 391 HZ-patients who completed the study, the overall proportion with PHN was 10.23% (95% CI: 7.41-13.67) and the highest proportion was 15.56% (95% CI: 6.49-29.46) for the 75-79?year-olds. Among the 128 patients (32.7%) who reported at least one pre-existing medical condition, 35.9% reported diabetes mellitus and 32.0% reported emotional problems, stress or depression. The study confirms previous findings that HZ and PHN cause an important clinical burden in older Italian adults. It also confirmed the age-related increasing risk of HZ and PHN.

SUBMITTER: Salvetti A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6522697 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ≥50 years: A prospective study.

Salvetti Andrea A Ferrari Vincenzo V Garofalo Remigio R Gazzaniga Pietro P Guerroni Alessandro A Metrucci Antonio A Sessa Aurelio A Severi Maria Loretta ML Nati Giulio G Ruggeri Mauro M Rossi Alessandro A Cappellari Laura L Gopala Kusuma K Tosatto Roberta R Simone Benedetto B

Preventive medicine reports 20190424

Herpes zoster (HZ) mainly affects older adults and immunocompromised individuals and is usually characterized by a unilateral painful skin rash. Its most common complication, postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), may cause chronic debilitating pain lasting for months or years. This study (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01772160) aimed to estimate the HZ incidence and the proportion of HZ patients with PHN in the Italian population aged 50 years or older. From 2013 to 2016, HZ-patients were recruited ...[more]

PMID: 31193254

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Project description:BackgroundHerpes zoster (HZ) is a painful dermatomal rash caused by reactivation of latent varicella zoster virus surviving in the patient's sensory ganglia after a previous episode of varicella. The incidence of HZ increases markedly with age as does the proportion of HZ patients who develop postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) with often severe and debilitating pain persisting for months and even years. This prospective study aimed to assess the impact of HZ and PHN on the quality of life (QoL) of individuals aged ? 50 years in Germany.MethodsPatients were recruited when consulting primary care physicians for a first HZ episode. PHN was defined as a 'worst' pain score???3 on the Zoster Brief Pain Inventory (ZBPI) scale persisting or appearing 90 days or more after rash onset. PHN-cases were followed for up to nine months after rash onset. The interference of pain with patients' ability to carry out normal activities was assessed by the ZBPI activities of daily living (ADL) scale and QoL by the EuroQoL five-dimension scale (EQ-5D) utility score.ResultsOf 513 patients enrolled, 61 (11.9%) developed PHN. At HZ onset, the mean ZBPI worst pain score of all patients was 5.1, the least square (LS)means estimates of the ZBPI ADL and EQ-5D utility scores were 2.970 and 0.740, respectively. Over three months follow-up, the pain scores decreased and the QoL increased monotonically across all age groups. At Day 90, the mean ZBPI worst pain score of the PHN patients was 4.4, while the LSmeans estimates of the ZBPI ADL and EQ-5D utility scores were 2.899 and 0.826, respectively. For patients with PHN persisting at nine months, the pain scores and QoL remained unchanged over the six months following the development of PHN.ConclusionHZ and PHN had a substantial impact on the patients' QoL and ability to function in their normal activities. There was a clear association in time between the evolution of pain and estimated QoL. The impact on ADL and QoL did not vary with age.

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Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ?50?years: A prospective study.

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Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ≥50 years: A prospective study.

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Dataset Information

Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ?50?years: A prospective study.

Publications

Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ≥50 years: A prospective study.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

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Incidence of herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia in Italian adults aged ≥50 years: A prospective study.