An inverse correlation of VZV skin-test reaction, but not antibody, with severity of herpes zoster skin symptoms and zoster-associated pain.

Background: Cell-mediated immunity (CMI) has been considered to be related to the development of herpes zoster (HZ). However, there have been no large-scale prospective studies on the relationship between VZV-specific CMI and severity of HZ.

Objective: We carried out a large-scale prospective cohort study to clarify the relationship between immunological factors for varicella-zoster virus (VZV) and the clinical severity of HZ.