ST. PAUL, Minn. – Having a shingles infection that affects the eyes
may increase the risk of stroke, according to new research published
in the March 3, 2010, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal
of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, researchers identified 658 people diagnosed with ocular
shingles and 1974 without the infection. None of these people had a
history of stroke at the beginning of the study. Ocular shingles is an
infection of the eye and the skin around the eye caused by the same
virus that causes chickenpox. About 10 to 20 percent of all people
with shingles have ocular shingles.

During the one-year study, stroke developed in 8.1 percent of the
people with shingles and 1.7 percent of the people without shingles.

The study found people with shingles were four-and-a-half times more
likely to have a stroke compared to people without shingles. The
results were the same regardless of age, gender, high blood pressure,
diabetes, heart disease and medications.

"Shingles may represent a marker for increased risk of stroke," said
Jau-Der Ho, MD, PhD, with Taipei Medical University in Taiwan.

The study also found the people with shingles were more likely to have
ischemic stroke, such as a blood clot, and less likely to have
hemorrhagic stroke, such as bleeding in the brain, compared to people
without shingles.

As we face an aging population with increased risk factors for stroke,
the results of this study reinforce the importance of preventing
stroke in older people who develop shingles," said Gustavo A. Ortiz,
MD, with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine in Miami,
who wrote an editorial accompanying the study and is a member of the
American Academy of Neurology.

Antiviral drugs are used to treat ocular shingles. The researchers
found that there was no difference in the risk of stroke between
people who received antiviral drugs and those who did not.

Ortiz says further research is needed because the study did not
account for stroke risk factors such as cigarette smoking. Also, the
results are based on people in Taiwan, and there may be differences in
stroke risk compared to other populations.