Daily Dose: High-dose Flu Vaccine Consistently More Effective vs Standard-dose

Patient Care brings primary care clinicians a lot of medical news every day—it’s easy to miss an important study. The Daily Dose provides a concise summary of one of the website's leading stories you may not have seen.

On October 24, 2022, we reviewed a study presented at IDWeek 2022, held from October 19 to 23, in Washington, DC.

The study

Researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, identifying 19 studies conducted over 11 consecutive influenza seasons from 2009 to 2020. The final pooled cohort numbered more than 45 million adults aged ≥65 years who had received either high- or standard-dose influenza vaccination.

The results

Receiving high-dose influenza vaccine was associated with greater relative efficacy and effecivenss vs receiving a standard-dose vaccine against probable or laboratory-confirmed influenza-like illnesses, hospital and ED visits, and influenza hospitalization.

High-dose influenza vaccines also conferred greater proection than standard-dose vaccines against hospitalizations for pneumonia, against influenza and pneumonia, and against respiratory, cardiovascular, cardiopulmonary, and all-cause events.

Results favored high-dose influenza vacccine in subanalyses stratified by dominant influenza strain, antigenic match, and study design and setting.

Clinical implications

“Evidence over 11 consecutive influenza seasons from both randomized and observational studies suggest HD-IIV [high-dose influenza vaccination] was consistently more effective than SD-IIV [standard-dose influenza vaccination] at reducing influenza and associated serious outcomes irrespective of recipient age and characteristics of the influenza season,” the researchers concluded.

Click here for the full study review.