Few Patients Receive Flu Vaccine Following Surgery

The influenza vaccine does not cause side effects and is safe for patients after surgery, according to a recent study.

Although patients being hospitalized for surgery are recommended to receive the flu vaccine, few patients actually get vaccinated. This may be because the post-surgery side effects of the vaccine were previously unknown.
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To conduct their study, researchers followed 42,777 patients aged 6 months and older who were admitted and discharged from surgery at the Kaiser Permanente Southern California between September 1 and March 31 from 2010 to 2013.

Researchers also collected data on whether patients were vaccinated after surgery during each flu season and whether patients experienced any side effects—including hospital readmission, fever, or infection—7 days after surgery.

After analyzing the data, researchers noted that 6420 of the 42,777 patients were vaccinated during the study period and that there weren’t any significant differences in side effects between the vaccinated and unvaccinated groups post-surgery.

However, a 5% increase in outpatient visits was seen in the vaccinated group.

“No strong evidence of increased risk for adverse outcomes was found in comparisons of patients who received influenza vaccine during a surgical hospitalization and those who did not,” researchers concluded. “The data support the recommendation to vaccinate surgical inpatients against influenza.”

—Amanda Balbi

Reference:

Tartof SY, Qian L, Rieg GK, et al. Safety of seasonal influenza vaccination in hospitalized surgical patients: A cohort study. Ann Intern Med. Published online March 15, 2016. doi:10.7326/M15-1667.