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Surveillance for Guillain-Barr? Syndrome After Influenza Vaccination Among the Medicare Population, 2009-2010

tetano

Editor, Senior Moderator
Am J Public Health. 2012 Oct;102(10):1921-1927. Epub 2012 Feb 16.
Surveillance for Guillain-Barr? Syndrome After Influenza Vaccination Among the Medicare Population, 2009-2010.
Burwen DR, Sandhu SK, Macurdy TE, Kelman JA, Gibbs JM, Garcia B, Markatou M, Forshee RA, Izurieta HS, Ball R; the Safety Surveillance Working Group.
Source

At the time of the study, Dale R. Burwen, Sukhminder K. Sandhu, Richard A. Forshee, Hector S. Izurieta, and Robert Ball were with the Office of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Rockville, MD. Marianthi Markatou was with the FDA, Rockville, MD (on leave from the Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University) and T. J. Watson Research Center, IBM, Hawthorne, NY (since January 2011). Thomas E. MaCurdy, Jonathan M. Gibbs and Bruno Garcia were with Acumen LLC, Burlingame, CA. Thomas E. MaCurdy was also with Stanford University, Stanford, CA. Jeffrey A. Kelman was with the Center for Medicare, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Baltimore, MD.
Abstract

Objectives. We implemented active surveillance for Guillain-Barr? syndrome (GBS) following seasonal or H1N1 influenza vaccination among the Medicare population during the 2009-2010 influenza season. Methods. We used weekly Medicare claims data to monitor vaccinations and subsequent hospitalizations with principal diagnosis code for GBS within 42 days. Group sequential testing assessed whether the observed GBS rate exceeded a critical limit based on the expected rate from 5 previous years adjusted for claims delay. We evaluated the lag between date of service and date of claims availability and used it for adjustment. Results. By July 30, 2010 (after 26 interim surveillance tests), 14.0 million seasonal and 3.3 million H1N1 vaccinations had accrued. Taking into account claims delay appropriately lowered the critical limit during early monitoring. The observed GBS rate was below the critical limit throughout the surveillance. Conclusions. Medicare data contributed rapid safety monitoring among millions of 2009-2010 influenza vaccine recipients. Adjustment for claims delay facilitates early detection of potential safety issues. Although limited by lack of medical record review to confirm cases, this claims-based surveillance did not indicate a statistically significant elevated GBS rate following seasonal or H1N1 influenza vaccination.

PMID:
22970693
[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22970693
 
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