Evidence map›Paper›PMID 24235264›Full record

ArticleClinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America2014

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

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

Erratum issuedOpen access · bronzeAbstract read
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Clinical infectious diseases : an official publication of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
23citing papers in PubMed, 1 pooled it
3.3field-weighted citation impact, top 8% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Review
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  9. Review
  10. Statin therapy and herpes virus reactivation-response to Zuin et al. paper.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2019
    Article
  11. Article
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  13. Herpes zoster infection and statins: which implications in clinical practice?European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2019
    Review
  14. Herpes Zoster Burden in Canadian Provinces: A Narrative Review and Comparison with Quebec Provincial Data.The Canadian journal of infectious diseases & medical microbiology = Journal canadien des maladies infectieuses et de la microbiologie medicale · 2018
    Review
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  19. Statins can increase the risk of herpes zoster infection in Asia.European journal of clinical microbiology & infectious diseases : official publication of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology · 2015
    Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.

Tony AntoniouDepartment of Family and Community Medicine, St Michael's Hospital.
Hong Zheng
Samantha Singh
David N Juurlink
Muhammad M Mamdani
Tara Gomes
University of Toronto · CAInstitute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences · CASunnybrook Research Institute

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundStatins 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.

methodsWe 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.

resultsDuring 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).

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

Indexed as

AgedAged, 80 and overAnticholesteremic AgentsCohort StudiesFemaleHerpes ZosterHumansImmunologic FactorsMaleOntarioRetrospective StudiesRisk AssessmentAnticholesteremic AgentsImmunologic Factorsdrug safetyelderlyherpes zosterpopulation-basedstatins

Identifiers

PMID24235264
PMCPMC3954107
OpenAlexW2171928734

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceCC BY-NC-ND
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.