PHILADELPHIA – The new American College of Rheumatology Guideline for Vaccinations in Patients with Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Diseases (RMDs) emphasizes that both adult and pediatric patients should receive recommended vaccinations whenever possible.
But the guideline, currently in press, also offers recommendations about whether and when to withhold vaccines from patients with RMDs, such as avoiding the use of live attenuated virus vaccines in patients who are on immunosuppressive drug regimens, such as conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), biologic DMARDs, or targeted synthetic DMARDs.
Dr. Anne R. Bass
The new consensus guideline was formulated with the understanding that patients with RMDs are at increased risk for vaccine-preventable infections and more serious complications from infections, compared with the general population.
However, the guideline also acknowledges that the immunogenicity and safety of vaccines may differ among patients with RMDs, and that, depending on the patient age and disease state, individuals may benefit from modified vaccine indications, schedules, or modified medication schedules, said guideline panel member Anne Bass, MD, a rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery and a professor of clinical medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who presented the guideline with other panel members in a session outlining the recommendations at the annual meeting of the ACR.
“In addition, vaccination recommendations – since much of it relates to medications – really applies across diseases, and so the ACR felt that, rather than having vaccine recommendations tacked onto the end of treatment guidelines for each individual disease, that the topic should be discussed or tackled as a whole,” she said.
The guideline does not cover vaccinations in patients taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs because this class of agents has minimal or no impact on antibody responses to vaccines. The guideline also does not address vaccinations against COVID-19 infections since the rapidly changing formulations would make the recommendations obsolete before they were even published, and because the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides up-to-date guidance on COVID-19 vaccinations in patients with compromised immunity, she said.
Guiding principles
The overarching principles of the guideline are to give indicated vaccines to patients with RMD whenever possible and that any decision to hold medications before or after vaccination consider the dosage used, RMD disease activity, and the patient’s risk for vaccine-preventable infection.
Dr. Clifton O. Bingham III
The guideline also states that “shared decision-making with patients is a key component of any vaccination strategy.”
Panel member Clifton O. Bingham III, MD, professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, outlined expanded indications for vaccinations against influenza, pneumococcal infections, varicella zoster virus (VZV) and human papillomavirus (HPV).
Influenza
The guideline conditionally recommends that patients with RMD aged 65 years and older and adults older than age 18 years who are on immunosuppressive medications should receive either high-dose or adjuvanted influenza vaccination rather than regular-dose vaccines.
“It’s recognized that the high-dose or adjuvanted vaccinations may be unavailable for patients when they’re seen in your practice,” Dr. Bingham said,” and we came out with two additional statements within the guidelines that said that any flu vaccine is recommended over no flu vaccinations, because we do know that responses are elicited, and a flu vaccination today is preferred over a flu vaccination delay.”
Pneumococcal vaccination
The panelists strongly recommended that patients with RMD younger than age 65 years who are on immunosuppressive medication receive pneumococcal vaccinations.
The ACR guideline is in sync with those issued by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Dr. Bingham said. He urged audience members to visit a CDC-ACIP web page for more information on who should receive pneumococcal vaccination and when.
Recombinant varicella zoster
The recommendations strongly support that patients aged 18 years and over who are on immunosuppressive therapies should receive the recombinant VZV vaccine (Shingrix).
HPV
A less robust, conditional recommendation is for patients with RMDs who are between the ages of 26 and 45 years and on immunosuppressive medications to receive the HPV vaccine (if they have not already received the vaccine).
Non-live attenuated vaccines
Kevin Winthrop, MD, MPH, professor of infectious diseases and public health at Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, summarized the recommendations for managing immunosuppressive therapies in patients scheduled to receive vaccinations using killed or nonactive antigens.
Dr. Kevin Winthrop
“In influenza season, don’t pass up the opportunity to vaccinate,” he said, adding, “if you can wait on rituximab dosing, do it, and if you can’t, go ahead and vaccinate.”
The guidelines also recommend a 2-week methotrexate hold at the time of influenza vaccination; other DMARD dosing changes are likely not necessary at the time of vaccination, “but this is an area of fervent study, and I think in a year or two we’ll have more experimental hold data with regard to other DMARDs,” Dr. Winthrop said.
For other nonlive attenuated vaccinations, recommendations are similar to those for influenza, except with more flexible timing because these vaccinations are not seasonal. When and how to hold methotrexate is still up in the air, he said.
Additionally, it’s recommended that vaccinations be delayed in patients on high-dose prednisone until the drug is tapered to below 20 mg per day, and ideally to less than 10 mg per day, he said.
Live-attenuated vaccines
The guideline conditionally recommends deferring live-attenuated vaccines in patients on immunosuppressive drugs. It also recommends holding these medications “for an appropriate period before” vaccination and for 4 weeks afterward.
“Although the evidence around conventional synthetic DMARDs and TNF inhibitors is reassuring in terms of their safety at the time of live attenuated vaccines, as you can see the number of studies is quite small, and so the voting panel conditionally recommend against administering live-attenuated virus vaccines to patients who are on conventional synthetics, biologic, or targeted DMARDs,” Dr. Bass said.