Volume 29, Issue 5, 2020
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.1073
Logistic Analysis of Risk Factors for Postherpetic Neuralgia
Abstract
Background: Currently, old age is the only recognized risk factor for postherpetic neuralgia (PHN), and the effects of degree of acute pain, severity of skin lesions, comorbidities, emotional state, treatment methods and laboratory indices on PHN remain unclear.
Methods: Four hundred patients with herpes zoster treated from January 2014 to December 2017 were enrolled. A self-made questionnaire was used for clinical data investigation. They were followed up to observe the incidence of PHN. The clinical data of patients with and without PHN were compared.
Results: Of the 400 patients, 348 (87.0%) were successfully followed up, including 52 PHN patients (observation group) and 296 cases without PHN (control group). The incidence rate of PHN was 14.9%. The risk factors of PHN were age of ≥50 years old, severe skin lesions, lesion area proportion of >5%, severe acute pain, initial treatment time of ≥3 days, complication with diabetes mellitus as well as abnormalities of fasting blood glucose level, albumin/globulin ratio and CD4+/CD8+ cell ratio. Among the 348 patients, 24, 272 and 52 had subacute neuralgia, acute neuralgia and PHN, respectively. PHN group had significantly more cases with age of ≥50 years, severe acute pain and severe skin lesions than subacute and acute neuralgia groups (P<0.05). Acute neuralgia group had significantly more cases with severe skin lesions than subacute neuralgia group (P<0.05).
Conclusions: Patients who are old with severe skin lesions, large lesion area, severe acute pain, long duration of initial treatment and complication with diabetes mellitus are prone to PHN. Immune status may be related to the occurrence of PHN. Subacute neuralgia is more than a temporal transition state between acute neuralgia and PHN
Keywords
herpes zoster, postherpetic neuralgia, risk factor, logistic