Results of vaccination against pneumococcal infection in patients with chronic heart failure

Aim: to study the effectiveness of specific prevention of pneumococcal infection in patients with chronic heart failure. Materials and Methods: Special questionnaire was developed to assess the clinical effectiveness of vaccination which included an assessment of anamnesis during the year preceding vaccination and anamnesis of the underlying disease during the year after vaccination. 832 patients with chronic heart failure were vaccinated. Patients were divided by age: 50-55, 56-60, 61-65, 66-70, 71-75, 76-80 and over 80 years old. Due to the heterogeneity of the samples, the comparative analysis was carried out by calculating the relative risk and using the student9s t-test. Results: vaccination against pneumococcus in group of patients with chronic heart failure allowed to reduce significantly the number of exacerbations of the basic disease in patients at the age of 56 to 60 years(RR=0.31(95%CI:0.10-0.92)), 66-70 and older than 76 years(p Conclusions: The results indicate a high efficiency of vaccination against pneumococcal infection in patients with chronic heart failure: in all groups a decrease in the incidence of respiratory infections, reduction in the number of exacerbations of the basic disease and hospitalizations for exacerbations was noted.