Patients with rheumatic diseases who are treated with tumor necrosis factor inhibitors are 10 times more likely to be hospitalized for shingles than the general population, Spanish researchers found.
Among patients on TNF inhibitors, the estimated incidence rate of hospitalizations for varicella zoster infection was 32 cases per 100,000 patient-years (95% CI 14 to 78), compared with a rate for the general population of 3.4 per 100,000 (95% CI 3.2 to 3.5), according to Ignacio García-Doval, MD, PhD, of Complexo Hospitalario de Pontevedra in Spain, and colleagues.
However, the absolute increase in the number of hospitalizations was small -- about three cases per 10,000 person-years, they reported in the October Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.
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