Patients with heart disease (HD) are more likely to suffer cardiac problems if they contract the influenza virus. The goal of this study was to see if the influenza vaccination has a main role in preventing newly diagnosed HD in individuals with no history of HD who were being followed up on at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC). The study is a retrospective cohort with a 2-year follow-up that was done at a tertiary care institution between 2011 and 2013 utilising electronic medical records. All patients aged 60 and up who had received the flu vaccination were randomly selected from the University Health Service records (UHS) and compared to a control group who had not received the flu vaccine during the same time period. This odds ratio is not statistically different from that of those who were vaccinated without any cofactors. The occurrence of HD in the context of immunisation indicated a non-significant decreasing trend as a number of risk variables increased.
Findings indicate that there was no statistically significant difference in the effect of the influenza vaccination on patients who had HD cofactors versus those who did not. Similarly, when the number of comorbidities increased, the protective impact of the vaccination increased non-significantly. The vaccine’s possible effects might be connected to flu protection.
Reference: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21645515.2019.1682846
