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Adults with a history of asthma are more likely to develop shingles, according to new research.
Researchers from the Mayo Clinic built onto a previous study they conducted in 2013, which found that children with asthma are at a higher risk for developing shingles.
To examine this connection in adults, researchers compared medical records of 371 patients over the age of 50 who had the shingles virus with 742 patients who didn’t.
Researchers found that 23% of patients with shingles had asthma, whereas only 15% of those who didn’t have shingles had asthma. They determined that adults with asthma are 70% more likely to develop shingles than those without asthma.
“Asthma is an unrecognized risk factor for [shingles] in adults,” researchers concluded. “Consideration should be given to immunizing adults with asthma aged more than 50 years as a target group.”
Reference:
Kwon HJ, Bang DW, Kim EN, et al. Asthma as a risk factor for zoster in adults: A population-based case-control study. J of Allergy and Clin Immunol. Published online December 28, 2015. www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(15)01641-3/abstract.
Source: Reproduced from GP Clinics Vol 6 No 12, 2016.
