Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Feb;58(3):350-6.
doi: 10.1093/cid/cit745. Epub 2013 Nov 13.

Statins and the risk of herpes zoster: a population-based cohort study

Tony Antoniou  1 , Hong Zheng, Samantha Singh, David N Juurlink, Muhammad M Mamdani, Tara Gomes
Affiliations

Statins and the risk of herpes zoster: a population-based cohort study

Tony Antoniou et al. Clin Infect Dis. 2014 Feb.

Erratum in

  • Clin Infect Dis. 2014 Apr;58(8):1203

Abstract

Background: Statins are widely used lipid-lowering drugs with immunomodulatory properties that may favor reactivation of latent varicella-zoster virus infection. However, whether statins increase the risk of herpes zoster is unknown.

Methods: We conducted a population-based retrospective cohort study of Ontario residents aged ≥ 66 years between 1 April 1997 and 31 March 2010 to examine the association between statin use and incidence of herpes zoster. We used propensity score matching to ensure similarity between users and nonusers of statins, and Cox proportional hazard models to assess differences in outcomes between study groups. To test the specificity of our findings, we examined the association between statin exposure and knee arthroplasty.

Results: During the 13-year study period, we matched 494 651 individuals treated with a statin to an equal number of untreated individuals. In the main analysis, the rate of herpes zoster was higher among users of statins relative to nonusers of these drugs (13.25 vs 11.71 per 1000 person-years, respectively; hazard ratio [HR], 1.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.10-1.17). The attributable fraction of exposed individuals was 11.6%. In a prespecified analysis, we found a similar risk of herpes zoster among statin users in the subgroup of patients with diabetes (HR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.09-1.27). As expected, we found no association between statin use and knee arthroplasty (HR, 1.04; 95% CI, .99-1.09).

Conclusions: Among older patients, treatment with statins is associated with a small but significantly increased risk of herpes zoster.

Keywords: drug safety; elderly; herpes zoster; population-based; statins.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Kaplan-Meier curves for herpes zoster, by statin use.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Wareham DW, Breuer J. Herpes zoster. BMJ. 2007;334:1211–5. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Thomas SL, Hall AJ. What does epidemiology tell us about risk factors for herpes zoster? Lancet Infect Dis. 2004;4:26–33. - PubMed
    1. Stein AN, Britt H, Harrison C, Conway EL, Cunningham A, MacIntyre CR. Herpes zoster burden of illness and health care resource utilization in the Australian population aged 50 years and older. Vaccine. 2009;27:520–9. - PubMed
    1. Dworkin RH, White R, O'Connor AB, Baser O, Hawkins K. Healthcare costs of acute and chronic pain associated with a diagnosis of herpes zoster. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2007;55:1168–75. - PubMed
    1. Yawn BP, Saddier P, Wolan PC, St. Sauver JL, Kurland MJ, Sy LS. A population-based study of the incidence and complication rates of herpes zoster before zoster vaccine introduction. Mayo Clin Proc. 2007;82:1341–9. - PubMed

Publication types

Substances