Epidemiology of Herpes Zoster Infection among Patients Treated in Primary Care Centres in the Valencian Community (Spain)

BMC Family Practice

Research Article

Javier Díez-Domingo¹  Joan Puig-Barberá²  Ana M Cebrián-Cuenca³  María San-Martín Rodríguez⁴  Jorge Navarro-Pérez⁵ 

[1] Centro Superior de Investigaciones en Salud Pública de Valencia (CSISP), Av. Cataluña 21, 46020, Valencia, Spain;Centro de Salud Pública de Castellón, Avda. del Mar, 12, 12003, Castellón de la Plana, Valencia, Spain;Centro de Salud de Ayora, Argentina Avenue, Ayora, Valencia, Spain;Departamento Médico Sanofi Pasteur MSD, Paseo de la Castellana, 141, Madrid, Spain;Dirección Médica de Atención Primaria del Departamento 5, Hospital Clínico Universitario de Valencia, Blasco Ibáñez Avenue, 46020, Valencia, Spain;

关键词: Herpes Zoster;    Annual Incidence;    Varicella Zoster Virus;    Postherpetic Neuralgia;    Autonomous Community;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2296-11-33

 received in 2009-12-04, accepted in 2010-05-06,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere is little available data regarding the epidemiology of herpes zoster (HZ) in Spain. This study's main goal was to estimate the annual incidence of HZ in the Autonomous Community of Valencia.MethodsFrom December 1st 2006 to December 1st 2007, a prospective study was carried out in 24 primary health care centres that together provide care for a population of 36,030 persons aged >14 years. We included all adult patients with a clinical diagnosis of HZ who were seen at these centres during the one-year study period. Demographic (i.e., age, gender, and area of residence) and clinical data were also collected from these patients.ResultsA total of 146 cases of HZ were identified during the study period. The annual incidence of HZ was 4.1/1,000 individuals >14 years of age (95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.4-4.7). Cases of HZ were predominantly unilateral and most commonly affected women and people living in rural areas. The most frequently reported symptoms were pain, dysesthesia and itching. A total of 46% of patients also had underlying illnesses (e.g., chronic diseases and/or malignancy) and 24% of patients experienced complications, which were mostly ocular in nature. A total of 91% of patients were treated with antiviral drugs. The median time from symptoms onset to diagnosis was 6.3 days (range: 2.0-8.3).ConclusionsHZ is a common illness in our region (especially in the older population) that causes a significant clinical burden on primary care providers.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Cebrián-Cuenca et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.