Tinnitus after COVID-19 vaccination: Findings from the vaccine adverse event reporting system and the vaccine safety datalink.

PURPOSE: To assess the occurrence of tinnitus following COVID-19 vaccination using data mining and descriptive analyses in two U.S. vaccine safety surveillance systems. METHODS: Reports of tinnitus after COVID-19 vaccination to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) from 2020 through 2024 were examined using empirical Bayesian data mining and by calculating reporting rates. In the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) population, ICD-10 coded post-vaccination medical visits were examined using tree-based data mining, and tinnitus visit incidence rates during post-vaccination days 1-140 were calculated by age group for COVID-19 vaccines and for comparison, influenza vaccine. RESULTS: VAERS data mining did not find disproportionate reporting of tinnitus for any COVID-19 vaccine. VAERS received up to 84.82 tinnitus reports per million COVID-19 vaccine doses administered. VSD tree-based data mining found no signals for tinnitus. VSD tinnitus visit incidence rates after COVID-19 vaccines were similar to those after influenza vaccine except for the group aged ≥65 years (Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, 165 per 10,000 person-years; Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, 154; influenza vaccine, 135). CONCLUSIONS: Overall, these findings do not support an increased risk of tinnitus following COVID-19 vaccination but cannot definitively exclude the possibility. Descriptive comparisons between COVID-19 and influenza vaccines were limited by lack of adjustment for potential confounding factors.

Safety of simultaneous vaccination with COVID-19 vaccines in the Vaccine Safety Datalink.

INTRODUCTION: Safety data on simultaneous vaccination (SV) with primary series monovalent COVID-19 vaccines and other vaccines are limited. We describe SV with primary series COVID-19 vaccines and assess 23 pre-specified health outcomes following SV among persons aged ≥5 years in the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD). METHODS: We utilized VSD's COVID-19 vaccine surveillance data from December 11, 2020-May 21, 2022. Analyses assessed frequency of SV. Rate ratios (RRs) were estimated by Poisson regression when the number of outcomes was ≥5 across both doses, comparing outcome rates between COVID-19 vaccinees receiving SV and COVID-19 vaccinees receiving no SV in the 1-21 days following COVID-19 vaccine dose 1 and 1-42 days following dose 2 by SV type received ("All SV", "Influenza SV", "Non-influenza SV"). RESULTS: SV with COVID-19 vaccines was not common practice (dose 1: 0.7 % of 8,455,037 persons, dose 2: 0.3 % of 7,787,013 persons). The most frequent simultaneous vaccines were influenza, HPV, Tdap, and meningococcal. Outcomes following SV with COVID-19 vaccines were rare (total of 56 outcomes observed after dose 1 and dose 2). Overall rate of outcomes among COVID-19 vaccinees who received SV was not statistically significantly different than the rate among those who did not receive SV (6.5 vs. 6.8 per 10,000 persons). Statistically significant elevated RRs were observed for appendicitis (2.09; 95 % CI, 1.06-4.13) and convulsions/seizures (2.78; 95 % CI, 1.10-7.06) in the "All SV" group following dose 1, and for Bell's palsy (2.82; 95 % CI, 1.14-6.97) in the "Influenza SV" group following dose 2. CONCLUSION: Combined pre-specified health outcomes observed among persons who received SV with COVID-19 vaccine were rare and not statistically significantly different compared to persons who did not receive SV with COVID-19 vaccine. Statistically significant adjusted rate ratios were observed for some individual outcomes, but the number of outcomes was small and there was no adjustment for multiple testing.

Active Postlicensure Safety Surveillance for Recombinant Zoster Vaccine Using Electronic Health Record Data.

Recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) (Shingrix; GlaxoSmithKline, Brentford, United Kingdom) is an adjuvanted glycoprotein vaccine that was licensed in 2017 to prevent herpes zoster (shingles) and its complications in older adults. In this prospective, postlicensure Vaccine Safety Datalink study using electronic health records, we sequentially monitored a real-world population of adults aged ≥50 years who received care in multiple US Vaccine Safety Datalink health systems to identify potentially increased risks of 10 prespecified health outcomes, including stroke, anaphylaxis, and Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Among 647,833 RZV doses administered from January 2018 through December 2019, we did not detect a sustained increased risk of any monitored outcome for RZV recipients relative to either historical (2013-2017) recipients of zoster vaccine live, a live attenuated virus vaccine (Zostavax; Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey), or contemporary non-RZV vaccine recipients who had an annual well-person visit during the 2018-2019 study period. We confirmed prelicensure trial findings of increased risks of systemic and local reactions following RZV. Our study provides additional reassurance about the overall safety of RZV. Despite a large sample, uncertainty remains regarding potential associations with GBS due to the limited number of confirmed GBS cases that were observed.

Sequential Data-Mining for Adverse Events After Recombinant Herpes Zoster Vaccination Using the Tree-Based Scan Statistic.

Tree-based scan statistics have been successfully used to study the safety of several vaccines without prespecifying health outcomes of concern. In this study, the binomial tree-based scan statistic was applied sequentially to detect adverse events in days 1-28 compared with days 29-56 after recombinant herpes zoster (RZV) vaccination, with 5 looks at the data and formal adjustment for the repeated analyses over time. IBM MarketScan data on commercially insured persons ≥50 years of age receiving RZV during January 1, 2018, to May 5, 2020, were used. With 999,876 doses of RZV included, statistically significant signals were detected only for unspecified adverse effects/complications following immunization, with attributable risks as low as 2 excess cases per 100,000 vaccinations. Ninety percent of cases in the signals occurred in the week after vaccination and, based on previous studies, likely represent nonserious events like fever, fatigue, and headache. Strengths of our study include its untargeted nature, self-controlled design, and formal adjustment for repeated testing. Although the method requires prespecification of the risk window of interest and may miss some true signals detectable using the tree-temporal variant of the method, it allows for early detection of potential safety problems through early initiation of ongoing monitoring.

A broad assessment of covid-19 vaccine safety using tree-based data-mining in the vaccine safety datalink.

BACKGROUND: Except for spontaneous reporting systems, vaccine safety monitoring generally involves pre-specifying health outcomes and post-vaccination risk windows of concern. Instead, we used tree-based data-mining to look more broadly for possible adverse events after Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen COVID-19 vaccination. METHODS: Vaccine Safety Datalink enrollees receiving ≥1 dose of COVID-19 vaccine in 2020-2021 were followed for 70 days after Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna and 56 days after Janssen vaccination. Incident diagnoses in inpatient or emergency department settings were analyzed for clustering within both the hierarchical ICD-10-CM code structure and the post-vaccination follow-up period. We used the self-controlled tree-temporal scan statistic and TreeScan software. Monte Carlo simulation was used to estimate p-values; p = 0.01 was the pre-specified cut-off for statistical significance of a cluster. RESULTS: There were 4.1, 2.6, and 0.4 million Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen vaccinees, respectively. Clusters after Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination included: (1) unspecified adverse effects, (2) common vaccine reactions, such as fever, myalgia, and headache, (3) myocarditis/pericarditis, and (4) less specific cardiac or respiratory symptoms, all with the strongest clusters generally after Dose 2; and (5) COVID-19/viral pneumonia/sepsis/respiratory failure in the first 3 weeks after Dose 1. Moderna results were similar but without a significant myocarditis/pericarditis cluster. Further investigation suggested the fifth signal group was a manifestation of mRNA vaccine effectiveness after the first 3 weeks. Janssen vaccinees had clusters of unspecified or common vaccine reactions, gait/mobility abnormalities, and muscle weakness. The latter two were deemed to have arisen from confounding related to practices at one site. CONCLUSIONS: We detected post-vaccination clusters of unspecified adverse effects, common vaccine reactions, and, for the mRNA vaccines, chest pain and palpitations, as well as myocarditis/pericarditis after Pfizer-BioNTech Dose 2. Unique advantages of this data mining are its untargeted nature and its inherent adjustment for the multiplicity of diagnoses and risk intervals scanned.

Kawasaki Disease Following the 13-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine and Rotavirus Vaccines.

BACKGROUND: Temporal associations between Kawasaki disease (KD) and childhood vaccines have been reported. Limited data on KD following 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate (PCV13) and rotavirus vaccines are available. METHODS: We conducted a self-controlled risk interval study using Vaccine Safety Datalink electronic health record data to investigate the risk of KD following PCV13 and rotavirus vaccines in children <2 years of age who were born from 2006 to 2017. All hospitalized KD cases identified by International Classification of Diseases diagnosis codes that fell within predefined risk (days 1-28 postvaccination) and control (days 29-56 for doses 1 and 2, and days 43-70 for doses 3 and 4) intervals were confirmed by manual chart review. RESULTS: During the study period, 655 cases of KD were identified by International Classification of Diseases codes. Of these, 97 chart-confirmed cases were within risk or control intervals. In analyses, the age-adjusted relative risk for KD following any dose of PCV13 was 0.75 (95% confidence interval, 0.47-1.21). Similarly, the age-adjusted relative risk for KD following any dose of rotavirus vaccine was 0.66 (95% CI, 0.40-1.09). Overall, there was no evidence of an elevated risk of KD following PCV13 or rotavirus vaccines by dose. In addition, no statistically significant temporal clustering of KD cases was identified during days 1 to 70 postvaccination. CONCLUSIONS: PCV13 and rotavirus vaccination were not associated with an increased risk of KD in children <2 years of age. Our findings provide additional evidence for the overall safety of PCV13 and rotavirus vaccines.

A Broad Safety Assessment of the Recombinant Herpes Zoster Vaccine.

The recombinant herpes zoster vaccine (RZV), approved as a 2-dose series in the United States in October 2017, has proven highly effective and generally safe. However, a small risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome after vaccination was identified after approval, and questions remain about other possible adverse events. This data-mining study assessed RZV safety in the United States using the self-controlled tree-temporal scan statistic, scanning data on thousands of diagnoses recorded during follow-up to detect any statistically unusual temporal clustering of cases within a large hierarchy of diagnoses. IBM MarketScan data on commercially insured persons at least 50 years of age receiving RZV between January 1, 2018, and May 5, 2020, were used, including 56 days of follow-up; 1,014,329 doses were included. Statistically significant clustering was found within a few days of vaccination for unspecified adverse effects, complications, or reactions to immunization or other medical substances/care; fever; unspecified allergy; syncope/collapse; cellulitis; myalgia; and dizziness/giddiness. These findings are consistent with the known safety profile of this and other injected vaccines. No cluster of Guillain-Barré syndrome was detected, possibly due to insufficient sample size. This signal-detection method has now been applied to 5 vaccines, with consistently plausible results, and seems a promising addition to vaccine-safety evaluation methods.

Surveillance for Adverse Events After COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination.

Importance: Safety surveillance of vaccines against COVID-19 is critical to ensure safety, maintain trust, and inform policy. Objectives: To monitor 23 serious outcomes weekly, using comprehensive health records on a diverse population. Design, Setting, and Participants: This study represents an interim analysis of safety surveillance data from Vaccine Safety Datalink. The 10 162 227 vaccine-eligible members of 8 participating US health plans were monitored with administrative data updated weekly and supplemented with medical record review for selected outcomes from December 14, 2020, through June 26, 2021. Exposures: Receipt of BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) or mRNA-1273 (Moderna) COVID-19 vaccination, with a risk interval of 21 days for individuals after vaccine dose 1 or 2 compared with an interval of 22 to 42 days for similar individuals after vaccine dose 1 or 2. Main Outcomes and Measures: Incidence of serious outcomes, including acute myocardial infarction, Bell palsy, cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myocarditis/pericarditis, pulmonary embolism, stroke, and thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome. Incidence of events that occurred among vaccine recipients 1 to 21 days after either dose 1 or 2 of a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine was compared with that of vaccinated concurrent comparators who, on the same calendar day, had received their most recent dose 22 to 42 days earlier. Rate ratios (RRs) were estimated by Poisson regression, adjusted for age, sex, race and ethnicity, health plan, and calendar day. For a signal, a 1-sided P < .0048 was required to keep type I error below .05 during 2 years of weekly analyses. For 4 additional outcomes, including anaphylaxis, only descriptive analyses were conducted. Results: A total of 11 845 128 doses of mRNA vaccines (57% BNT162b2; 6 175 813 first doses and 5 669 315 second doses) were administered to 6.2 million individuals (mean age, 49 years; 54% female individuals). The incidence of events per 1 000 000 person-years during the risk vs comparison intervals for ischemic stroke was 1612 vs 1781 (RR, 0.97; 95% CI, 0.87-1.08); for appendicitis, 1179 vs 1345 (RR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.73-0.93); and for acute myocardial infarction, 935 vs 1030 (RR, 1.02; 95% CI, 0.89-1.18). No vaccine-outcome association met the prespecified requirement for a signal. Incidence of confirmed anaphylaxis was 4.8 (95% CI, 3.2-6.9) per million doses of BNT162b2 and 5.1 (95% CI, 3.3-7.6) per million doses of mRNA-1273. Conclusions and Relevance: In interim analyses of surveillance of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, incidence of selected serious outcomes was not significantly higher 1 to 21 days postvaccination compared with 22 to 42 days postvaccination. While CIs were wide for many outcomes, surveillance is ongoing.

COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Insured Persons Aged ≥16 Years, by Race/Ethnicity and Other Selected Characteristics - Eight Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020-May 15, 2021.

COVID-19 vaccination is critical to ending the COVID-19 pandemic. Members of minority racial and ethnic groups have experienced disproportionate COVID-19-associated morbidity and mortality (1); however, COVID-19 vaccination coverage is lower in these groups (2). CDC used data from CDC's Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD)* to assess disparities in vaccination coverage among persons aged ≥16 years by race and ethnicity during December 14, 2020-May 15, 2021. Measures of coverage included receipt of ≥1 COVID-19 vaccine dose (i.e., receipt of the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines or 1 dose of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine [Johnson & Johnson]) and full vaccination (receipt of 2 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines or 1 dose of Janssen COVID-19 vaccine). Among 9.6 million persons aged ≥16 years enrolled in VSD during December 14, 2020-May 15, 2021, ≥1-dose coverage was 48.3%, and 38.3% were fully vaccinated. As of May 15, 2021, coverage with ≥1 dose was lower among non-Hispanic Black (Black) and Hispanic persons (40.7% and 41.1%, respectively) than it was among non-Hispanic White (White) persons (54.6%). Coverage was highest among non-Hispanic Asian (Asian) persons (57.4%). Coverage with ≥1 dose was higher among persons with certain medical conditions that place them at higher risk for severe COVID-19 (high-risk conditions) (63.8%) than it was among persons without such conditions (41.5%) and was higher among persons who had not had COVID-19 (48.8%) than it was among those who had (42.4%). Persons aged 18-24 years had the lowest ≥1-dose coverage (28.7%) among all age groups. Continued monitoring of vaccination coverage and efforts to improve equity in coverage are critical, especially among populations disproportionately affected by COVID-19.

A COVID-19-ready public health surveillance system: The Food and Drug Administration's Sentinel System.

The US Food and Drug Administration's Sentinel System was established in 2009 to use routinely collected electronic health data for improving the national capability to assess post-market medical product safety. Over more than a decade, Sentinel has become an integral part of FDA's surveillance capabilities and has been used to conduct analyses that have contributed to regulatory decisions. FDA's role in the COVID-19 pandemic response has necessitated an expansion and enhancement of Sentinel. Here we describe how the Sentinel System has supported FDA's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. We highlight new capabilities developed, key data generated to date, and lessons learned, particularly with respect to working with inpatient electronic health record data. Early in the pandemic, Sentinel developed a multi-pronged approach to support FDA's anticipated data and analytic needs. It incorporated new data sources, created a rapidly refreshed database, developed protocols to assess the natural history of COVID-19, validated a diagnosis-code based algorithm for identifying patients with COVID-19 in administrative claims data, and coordinated with other national and international initiatives. Sentinel is poised to answer important questions about the natural history of COVID-19 and is positioned to use this information to study the use, safety, and potentially the effectiveness of medical products used for COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

A Broad Safety Assessment of the 9-Valent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine.

Parents indicate that safety is their top concern about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. A data-mining method not requiring prespecification of health outcome(s) or postexposure period(s) of potentially increased risk can be used to identify possible associations between an exposure and any of thousands of medically attended health outcomes; this method was applied to data on the 9-valent HPV vaccine (HPV9) to detect potential safety problems. Data on 9- to 26-year-olds who had received HPV9 vaccine between November 4, 2016, and August 5, 2018, inclusive, were extracted from the MarketScan database and analyzed for statistically significant clustering of incident diagnoses within the hierarchy of diagnoses coded using the International Classification of Diseases and temporally within the 1 year after vaccination, using the self-controlled tree-temporal scan statistic and TreeScan software. Only 56 days of postvaccination enrollment was required; subsequent follow-up was censored at disenrollment. Multiple testing was adjusted for. The analysis included 493,089 doses of HPV9. Almost all signals resulted from temporal confounding, not unexpected with a 1-year follow-up period. The only plausible signals were for nonspecific adverse events (e.g., injection-site reactions, headache) on days 1-2 after vaccination, with attributable risks as low as 1 per 100,000 vaccinees. Considering the broad scope of the evaluation and the high statistical power, the findings of no specific serious adverse events should provide reassurance about this vaccine's safety.

The risk of febrile seizures following influenza and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccines.

BACKGROUND: Evidence on the risk of febrile seizures after inactivated influenza vaccine (IIV) and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) is mixed. In the FDA-sponsored Sentinel Initiative, we examined risk of febrile seizures after IIV and PCV13 in children 6-23 months of age during the 2013-14 and 2014-15 influenza seasons. METHODS: Using claims data and a self-controlled risk interval design, we compared the febrile seizure rate in a risk interval (0-1 days) versus control interval (14-20 days). In exploratory analyses, we assessed whether the effect of IIV was modified by concomitant PCV13 administration. RESULTS: Adjusted for age, calendar time and concomitant administration of the other vaccine, the incidence rate ratio (IRR) for risk of febrile seizures following IIV was 1.12 (95% CI 0.80, 1.56) and following PCV13 was 1.80 (95% CI 1.29, 2.52). The attributable risk for febrile seizures following PCV13 ranged from 0.33 to 5.16 per 100,000 doses by week of age. The age and calendar-time adjusted IRR comparing exposed to unexposed time was numerically larger for concomitant IIV and PCV13 (IRR 2.80, 95% CI 1.63, 4.83), as compared to PCV13 without concomitant IIV (IRR 1.54, 95% CI 1.04, 2.28), and the IRR for IIV without concomitant PCV13 suggested no independent effects of IIV (IRR 0.94, 95% CI 0.63, 1.42). Taken together, this suggests a possible interaction between IIV and PCV13, though our study was not sufficiently powered to provide a precise estimate of the interaction. CONCLUSIONS: We found an elevated risk of febrile seizures after PCV13 vaccine but not after IIV. The risk of febrile seizures after PCV13 is low compared to the overall risk in this population of children, and the risk should be interpreted in the context of the importance of preventing pneumococcal infections.

Comment on Sarathkumara et al.: Exposure to Hantavirus is a Risk Factor Associated with Kidney Diseases in Sri Lanka: A Cross Sectional Study.

In a recent paper, Sarathkumara et al [...].

Kawasaki disease and 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccination among young children: A self-controlled risk interval and cohort study with null results.

BACKGROUND: Kawasaki disease is an acute vasculitis that primarily affects children younger than 5 years of age. Its etiology is unknown. The United States Vaccine Safety Datalink conducted postlicensure safety surveillance for 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), comparing the risk of Kawasaki disease within 28 days of PCV13 vaccination with the historical risk after 7-valent PCV (PCV7) vaccination and using chart-validation. A relative risk (RR) of 2.38 (95% CI 0.92-6.38) was found. Concurrently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted a postlicensure safety review that identified cases of Kawasaki disease through adverse event reporting. The FDA decided to initiate a larger study of Kawasaki disease risk following PCV13 vaccination in the claims-based Sentinel/Postlicensure Rapid Immunization Safety Monitoring (PRISM) surveillance system. The objective of this study was to determine the existence and magnitude of any increased risk of Kawasaki disease in the 28 days following PCV13 vaccination. METHODS AND FINDINGS: The study population included mostly commercially insured children from birth to <24 months of age in 2010 to 2015 from across the US. Using claims data of participating Sentinel/PRISM data-providing organizations, PCV13 vaccinations were identified by means of current procedural terminology (CPT), Healthcare Common Procedure Coding System (HCPCS), and National Drug Code (NDC) codes. Potential cases of Kawasaki disease were identified by first-in-365-days International Classification of Diseases 9th revision (ICD-9) code 446.1 or International Classification of Diseases 10th revision (ICD-10) code M30.3 in the inpatient setting. Medical records were sought for potential cases and adjudicated by board-certified pediatricians. The primary analysis used chart-confirmed cases with adjudicated symptom onset in a self-controlled risk interval (SCRI) design, which controls for time-invariant potential confounders. The prespecified risk interval was Days 1-28 after vaccination; a 28-day-long control interval followed this risk interval. A secondary analytic approach used a cohort design, with alternative potential risk intervals of Days 1-28 and Days 1-42. The varying background risk of Kawasaki disease by age was adjusted for in both designs. In the primary analysis, there were 43 confirmed cases of Kawasaki disease in the risk interval and 44 in the control interval. The age-adjusted risk estimate was 1.07 (95% CI 0.70-1.63; p = 0.76). In the secondary, cohort analyses, which included roughly 700 potential cases and more than 3 million person-years, the risk estimates of potential Kawasaki disease in the risk interval versus in unexposed person-time were 0.84 (95% CI 0.65-1.08; p = 0.18) for the Days 1-28 risk interval and 0.97 (95% CI 0.79-1.19; p = 0.80) for the Days 1-42 risk interval. The main limitation of the study was that we lacked the resources to conduct medical record review for all the potential cases of Kawasaki disease. As a result, potential cases rather than chart-confirmed cases were used in the cohort analyses. CONCLUSIONS: With more than 6 million doses of PCV13 administered, no evidence was found of an association between PCV13 vaccination and Kawasaki disease onset in the 4 weeks after vaccination nor of an elevated risk extending or concentrated somewhat beyond 4 weeks. These null results were consistent across alternative designs, age-adjustment methods, control intervals, and categories of Kawasaki disease case included.

Investigating Possible Infectious Causes of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology in a Nicaraguan Mining Community.

A chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) has been killing workers in Central America. Occupational heat stress is thought to play an important role. Leptospirosis and hantavirus have been suggested as additional possible risk factors. In a case-control study in a Nicaraguan mining community, a structured survey was administered to adults, and biological measurements and specimens were taken. Serum was analyzed for antibodies to Leptospira and hantavirus. Before statistical analysis, a board-certified nephrologist determined final case and control status based on serum creatinine and other laboratory values. Multivariable analysis was by logistic regression. In sensitivity analyses, cases were restricted to those diagnosed with CKDu in the previous 3 years. Of 320 eligible participants, 112 were classified as presumptive cases, 176 as controls and 32 as indeterminant. The risk of CKDu in those ever having worked in mining or construction was 4.4 times higher than in other participants (odds ratio = 4.44, 95% CI: 1.96-10.0, P = 0.0003). Eighty-three (26%) of the 320 participants were seropositive for at least one tested strain of Leptospira. No evidence of a causal link between leptospirosis or hantavirus and CKDu was found. The sensitivity analyses provide some evidence against the hypotheses that leptospirosis or hantavirus leads to CKDu within a few years. A major limitation was the impossibility of determining the absolute or relative timing of infection and CKDu onset. A prospective cohort design, with repeated collection of specimens over several years, could yield clearer answers about infections as potential etiologic agents in CKDu.

Using the Self-Controlled Tree-Temporal Scan Statistic to Assess the Safety of Live Attenuated Herpes Zoster Vaccine.

The self-controlled tree-temporal scan statistic allows detection of potential vaccine- or drug-associated adverse events without prespecifying the specific events or postexposure risk intervals of concern. It thus opens a promising new avenue for safety studies. The method has been successfully used to evaluate the safety of 2 vaccines for adolescents and young adults, but its suitability to study vaccines for older adults had not been established. The present study applied the method to assess the safety of live attenuated herpes zoster vaccination during 2011-2017 in US adults aged ≥60 years, using claims data from Truven Health MarketScan Research Databases. Counts of International Classification of Diseases diagnosis codes recorded in emergency department or hospital settings were scanned for any statistically unusual clustering within a hierarchical tree structure of diagnoses and within 42 days after vaccination. Among 1.24 million vaccinations, 4 clusters were found: cellulitis on days 1-3, nonspecific erythematous condition on days 2-4, "other complications . . ." on days 1-3, and nonspecific allergy on days 1-6. These results are consistent with local injection-site reactions and other known, generally mild, vaccine-associated adverse events and a favorable safety profile. This method might be useful for assessing the safety of other vaccines for older adults.

Alpha spending for historical versus surveillance Poisson data with CMaxSPRT.

Sequential analysis hypothesis testing is now an important tool for postmarket drug and vaccine safety surveillance. When the number of adverse events accruing in time is assumed to follow a Poisson distribution, and if the baseline Poisson rate is assessed only with uncertainty, the conditional maximized sequential probability ratio test, CMaxSPRT, is a formal solution. CMaxSPRT is based on comparing monitored data with historical matched data, and it was primarily developed under a flat signaling threshold. This paper demonstrates that CMaxSPRT can be performed under nonflat thresholds too. We pose the discussion in the light of the alpha spending approach. In addition, we offer a rule of thumb for establishing the best shape of the signaling threshold in the sense of minimizing expected time to signal and expected sample size. An example involving surveillance for adverse events after influenza vaccination is used to illustrate the method.

Assessment of Quadrivalent Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Safety Using the Self-Controlled Tree-Temporal Scan Statistic Signal-Detection Method in the Sentinel System.

The self-controlled tree-temporal scan statistic-a new signal-detection method-can evaluate whether any of a wide variety of health outcomes are temporally associated with receipt of a specific vaccine, while adjusting for multiple testing. Neither health outcomes nor postvaccination potential periods of increased risk need be prespecified. Using US medical claims data in the Food and Drug Administration's Sentinel system, we employed the method to evaluate adverse events occurring after receipt of quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (4vHPV). Incident outcomes recorded in emergency department or inpatient settings within 56 days after first doses of 4vHPV received by 9- through 26.9-year-olds in 2006-2014 were identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, diagnosis codes and analyzed by pairing the new method with a standard hierarchical classification of diagnoses. On scanning diagnoses of 1.9 million 4vHPV recipients, 2 statistically significant categories of adverse events were found: cellulitis on days 2-3 after vaccination and "other complications of surgical and medical procedures" on days 1-3 after vaccination. Cellulitis is a known adverse event. Clinically informed investigation of electronic claims records of the patients with "other complications" did not suggest any previously unknown vaccine safety problem. Considering that thousands of potential short-term adverse events and hundreds of potential risk intervals were evaluated, these findings add significantly to the growing safety record of 4vHPV.

Evaluation of the risk of venous thromboembolism after quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccination among US females.

After the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (HPV4) in 2006, reports suggesting a possible association with venous thromboembolism (VTE) emerged from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System and the Vaccine Safety Datalink. Our objective was to determine whether HPV4 increased VTE risk. The subjects were 9-26-year-old female members of five data partners in the FDA's Mini-Sentinel pilot project receiving HPV4 during 2006-2013. The outcome was radiologically confirmed first-ever VTE among potential cases identified by diagnosis codes in administrative data during Days 1-77 after HPV4 vaccination. With a self-controlled risk interval design, we compared counts of first-ever VTE in risk intervals (Days 1-28 and Days 1-7 post-vaccination) and control intervals (Days 36-56 for Dose 1 and Days 36-63 for Doses 2 and 3). Combined hormonal contraceptive use was treated as a potential confounder. The main analyses were: (1) unadjusted for time-varying VTE risk from contraceptive use, (2) unadjusted but restricted to cases without such time-varying risk, and (3) adjusted by incorporating the modeled risk of VTE by week of contraceptive use in the analysis. Of 279 potential VTE cases identified following 1,423,399 HPV4 doses administered, 225 had obtainable charts, and 53 were confirmed first-ever VTE. All 30 with onsets in risk or control intervals had known risk factors for VTE. VTE risk was not elevated in the first 7 or 28 days following any dose of HPV in any analysis (e.g. relative risk estimate (95% CI) from both unrestricted analyses, for all-doses, 28-day risk interval: 0.7 (0.3-1.4)). Temporal scan statistics found no clustering of VTE onsets after any dose. Thus, we found no evidence of an increased risk of VTE associated with HPV4 among 9-26-year-old females. A particular strength of this evaluation was its control for both time-invariant and contraceptive-related time-varying potential confounding.