EDITORIAL
Polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccination
Polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccination: new evidence
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr A J Hall
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London WC1E 7HT, UK; andy.hall@lshtm.ac.uk
Efficacy of anti-pneumococcal vaccination in patients with COPD
Keywords: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; anti-pneumococcal vaccine; pneumonia
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The use of polysaccharide pneumococcal vaccination in elderly or high risk populations remains controversial. Evidence from less developed countries is the most persuasive in the absence of HIV, but in more developed countries the nine randomised controlled trials to date are inconclusive. They have now been the subject of some five meta-analyses1–5 and to this can be added a recent meta-analysis of both the randomised controlled trials and observational studies.6 There has even been a review of the meta-analyses!7
The most recent review is helpful because it compares the trials and the observational studies using similar quality criteria and methods of pooling results. The strongest evidence is based on pneumococcal bacteraemia as the end point. Here studies of all types—case-control, cohort and randomised controlled trials—show consistent evidence of around 50% protection. However, it remains unclear whether this represents true protection or a suppression of bacteraemia without affecting
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
Relevant Article
- Airwaves
- Wisia Wedzicha
Thorax 2006 61: 183.[Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
-
Drugs: infectious diseases
-
Vaccination / immunisation
-
Pneumonia (infectious disease)
-
TB and other respiratory infections
-
Pneumonia (respiratory medicine)
- Relevant Article
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
