Reply to Lai and Liao

Le résumé fourni par la source

To the Editor—We appreciate Dr Lai and Dr Liao's thoughtful comments on our manuscript and for highlighting the importance of adjusting for confounding factors when interpreting the association between the recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk [1]. Crude incidence rates provide a basic, standardized measure of disease frequency in a population, but multivariable-adjusted model results provide a more reliable assessment of associations in observational studies. We agree with the correspondents’ observations regarding the distinction between crude incidence rates and adjusted hazard ratios. As they noted, Table 2 of our study [1] presents crude CVD incidence rates, which can be influenced by differences in baseline characteristics, such as age and comorbidities. Our Cox proportional hazards model in Table 3 [1] accounts for these potential confounders, demonstrating that RZV is associated with a reduced CVD risk rather than an increased one. This reinforces the importance of careful interpretation of unadjusted rates in epidemiologic research. In our future studies, we will continue to use robust statistical methods and ensure careful interpretation of our findings.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.