HERPES ZOSTER IN JAPANESE ELDERLY PEOPLE

*M. Honda & M. Niimura
Department of Dermatology, The Jikei University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan

Generally speaking, herpes zoster occurs most often in elderly people by age-associated decline in immune function or in immunocompromized patients.

The incidence of patients with herpes zoster accounts for 1 to 2% of the outpatients treated at our department of dermatology but recently the number of patients has been on the increase each year, with a peak in their 20's and 50's. Of our 1,206 patients with herpes zoster, 580 (48.1%) were over 50 years old. To be more precise, those in their 50's, 60's, and over 70 accounted for 21.1%,16.6%, and 10.4%, respectively. When antiviral drugs were not used, the number of days required for cure was 19.8 +8.2, 21.1 +11.5, and 23.1 +17.9, respectively. The trigeminal (22.4%), cervical (14.5%), thoracic (48.8%), lumbal (11.3%), and sacral (2.9%) dermatomes were involved in our cases. The incidence of post-herpetic neuralgia (PHN) is about 3% but the rate is highest in the elderly, and is, about 12% in those in theirs 80's. The highest association of herpes zoster which develops into PHN occurs 5.5% (12/237) in the trigeminal nerve region, followed by the lumbosacromeningial nerve region at 3.1% (4/129) and in the cervical cord area at 2.5% (4/161) and thoracic cord area at 1.9% (11/581).

Corresponding Author: Mariko Honda,M.D.,Ph.D, Assistant Professor of Dermatology, Department of Dermatology, The Jikei University School of Medicine, 19-18, 3-chome, Nishishimbashi, minato-ku,Tokyo,105-0003 Japan;
e-mail: m-honda@jikei.ac.jp