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July 19, 2002

U.S. IMMUNIZATION NEWS

"Chickenpox Vaccine May Reduce Risk of Shingles"

British Medical Journal Online (www.bmj.com) (07/20/02); Spurgeon, David

A recent study from researchers at Stanford University suggested that the risk of shingles can be reduced in adults if they are injected with an inactivated form of the chickenpox vaccine. Herpes zoster (shingles), which is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox, is a particular risk for individuals with compromised immune systems; however, even among healthy adults the risk for shingles increases each decade after age 60.  Once a person is infected by the virus, it remains latent in nerve cells and can become reactivated when the immune system is particularly weak, causing a itchy, burning rash, and shooting pains that can last for years.  For the purposes of their study, the Stanford scientists used a heat -inactivated version of the childhood chickenpox vaccine that is made strictly for research purposes by Merck, to see if it would protect cancer patients who receive haemopoietic cell transplants against such reactivation.  The results showed that only seven of the 53 patients who received a single dose of the inactivated vaccine within 30 days of the transplantation, followed by three doses post transplantation developed shingles, compared to 17 of the 56 participants in the unvaccinated control group.  The authors--who published their findings in the New England Journal of Medicine--believe that not only can the administering of the inactivated chickenpox vaccine benefit other people at risk for shingles, but the strategic pre-and-post-transplantation vaccination scheme might also protect patients from other viruses and bacteria.

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