The risk of developing herpes zoster appears to be strongly associated with a family history of the disorder, researchers said.
If further studies confirm this link, people whose family histories put them at risk can be targeted for vaccination, according to Lindsey D. Hicks, a medical student at the University of Texas at Houston, and her associates.
Noting that a recent literature review suggested that a family history of herpes zoster might be predictive but that the issue has not been adequately studied, the investigators conducted a case-control analysis involving 504 patients treated between 1992 and 2005 and 523 well-matched control subjects who never had herpes zoster. Nearly equal proportions of cases and controls (76%) recalled having had primary infection with varicella-zoster virus.
Case patients were about four times more likely than were control subjects to report having a first-degree relative with a history of herpes zoster.
Moreover, the risk of developing herpes zoster rose in a dose-dependent fashion as the number of affected relatives increased. “An odds ratio of 4.5 was calculated for [patients] reporting single [affected] relatives, and an odds ratio of 13.7 was calculated for those reporting multiple [affected] relatives,” Ms. Hicks and her associates wrote (Arch. Dermatol. 2008;144:603–8).