Epidemiologic features of patients affected by herpes zoster: Database analysis of the Ferrara university dermatology unit, Italy

.Herpes Zoster is the consequence of reactivation of VZV virus, which remains in latent form in sensorial ganglia during primary infection. It is characterized by a vescicular rash with dermatomeric extension and by moderate to severe pain. In many patients pain does not disappear with the rash, but continues long after (post-herpetic neuralgia). The recent authorization and commercialization in the USA of a “zoster vaccine” with high antigenic titer opens to interesting prospectives of prevention of this important disease. Nationaly complete and recent epidemiological data are not available. Therefore we evaluated epidemiological features of patients affected by Herpes Zoster affering to the Section of Dermatology of the University of Ferrara during the period 2000-2008. The archive was consulted, in full respect of the current privacy laws, gathering the following data for patients seen at the Dermatology Ambulatory or in other Departments: gender, age, residence, date and place of visit, localization of zoster, therapy (type and duration). Demographic data about the first 484 patients analyzed were: 49% male, 49.5% female; median age 56 years old; 91% resident in the province of Ferrara. The provenance often (43%) was not specified; in the remaing 57% of cases patients were sent from general and ophthalmology emergency rooms. The most frequent localizations were: 32% ophthalmic; 16.5% thoracic; 16% facial. Most patients were treated with oral antiviral drugs for 7 days. According to localization and clinical severity, topical or oral antibiotics, analgesics , neurotrophic drugs were prescribed. These data, although not representative of totality of cases in the province of Ferrara, confirm the epidemiological impact of Zoster, which brings a certain number of subjects to use the hospital and specialistic structures for diagnosis and cure.