Background: There is a direct correlation between increasing age and incidence of herpes zoster. There is an increased risk of complications in the elderly and the immunocompromised.
Objective: To study the clinical epidemiology of hospitalised patients with herpes zoster.
Methods: Medical records of all patients hospitalised with zoster were respectively analysed.
Results: Sixty-seven patients (3% of total admissions) were studied. There were 35 males and 32 females with a mean age of 50.35 +/- 21.71. There was an increased proportion of older patients in the study cohort. Nineteen patients (28.4%) were immunocompromised with malignancy occurring in 9 patients. Thirteen had been on cytotoxic and/or steroid therapy. The commonest symptoms were rash, pain and fever. Eighty-five percent of the patients had complications (bacterial super-infection in (61%), dissemination (31%), ocular involvement (5%) and post-herpetic neuralgia (13.4%). There was an increasing frequency of duration of pain with increasing age in the patients with post-herpetic neuralgia. Forty-three patients were treated with acyclovir. The median time to healing of lesions was 11 days. The 41 patients with bacterial super-infection received antibiotics with median time to healing of 12 days.
Conclusion: Increasing age and immunocompromised state appear to be risk factors for developing herpes zoster in hospitalised patients.