Clinical Summary

Influenza Vaccine Offers Cardiovascular Benefits in Individuals at Varying Cardiovascular Risk

Vinrod Rane, BS Pharm

Takeaway

Influenza vaccine was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular (CV) events, irrespective of the underlying CV risk.

Findings suggest that improved vaccine uptake may help reduce the risk of first acute CV events in people who are already eligible to receive the seasonal influenza vaccine.

The observational study included 193,900 participants (age 40-84 years) with a first acute CV event using linked data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, Hospital Episode Statistics Admitted Patient Care, and Office for National Statistics (2009-2019).
Primary outcome: any CV event (myocardial infarction, unstable angina, acute left ventricular heart failure, stroke, transient ischaemic attack, or acute limb ischaemia).
Secondary outcomes: individual CV events except acute limb ischaemia.
Funding: Wellcome Trust.

Overall, 105,539 participants had hypertension and 172,050 had a QRISK2 score of ≥10%.
There was a significant reduction in the risk of acute CV events in the 15-28 days post-vaccination (incidence ratio [IR] 0.72; 95% CI 0.70 to 0.74).
These effects tapered but remained significant in the 91-120 days post-vaccination (IR 0.84; 95% CI 0.82 to 0.85).
A significant reduction was obseved in individual CV events, but the reduction was more significant in myocardial infarction than other CV events (15-28 days: IR 0.60; 95% CI 0.57 to 0.64).
The risk of acute CV events significantly reduced post-vaccination among individuals across all age groups and with raised and lower CV risk.