To Investigate the Risk of Herpes Zoster in Women With Endometriosis: A Taiwan National Population-Based Cohort Study.

The objective of this study is to investigate the occurrence of herpes zoster (HZ) in patients with endometriosis. This retrospective population-based cohort study was conducted using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. Between 2000 and 2012, women aged ≥20 years with newly diagnosed endometriosis were enrolled into the endometriosis group. Each patient with endometriosis was randomly matched to 4 controls according to age and index year. All the patients were traced from the index date to HZ diagnosis, loss to follow-up, death, or the end of December 2013. In total, 19,147 patients with newly diagnosed endometriosis and 76,588 participants without endometriosis were enrolled. The incidence of HZ was higher in endometriosis persons (5.36 per 1,000 person-years) than in matched controls (4.43 per 1,000 person-years) ( < 0.001). After adjustment for age and comorbidities, patients with endometriosis age ≤ 49 years (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR] = 1.17) ( < 0.001) and 50-64 years (aHR = 1.27) ( < 0.05) showed significantly higher risk of HZ than the corresponding controls. Among women without any comorbidities, patients with endometriosis were 1.22 times ( < 0.001) more likely to have HZ than those without endometriosis. Taiwanese women with endometriosis may have a higher rate of HZ occurrence. Endometriosis seems to be a high burden for affected women. Therefore, we suggest that clinicians should be aware of HZ among women with endometriosis, although there may be ethnic differences.