Some of the elderly may do better with a high-dose flu vaccine. Some may do just as well with a normal one.
Researchers at the University of Connecticut are working to find better ways to vaccinate the elderly against the flu. The normal flu vaccine has a fairly high success rate in the general population, but it’s not as good at protecting people over 65 against influenza.
A normal dose of the flu vaccine has 15 micrograms of antigen, and that amount is good enough to protect the majority of the population against the flu. However, Dr. George Kuchel, the Citicorp Chair in Geriatrics and Gerentology at the University of Connecticut, is investigating a new, higher dose dose vaccine that seems to better at vaccinating the elderly.
“Recently, a new form of the flu vaccine came on the market which is the high dose flu vaccine,” Kuchel said. “It’s the same as the regular vaccine, except it has four times the amount of antigen or protein in it, so it’s a much more potent stimulus.”
A study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine included more than 30,000 participants, and provided strong evidence that the high-dose vaccine provides better protection against influenza for elderly patients.
Kuchel is in the second year of a five-year clinical trial looking to build on those results. This particular study is smaller -- it will include about 100 participants each year. Along with giving participants one of the vaccines, Kuchel and his collaborators will analyze participants blood for levels and ratios of certain biomarkers.
Kuchel wants to use those biomarkers, as well as other patient information, to find ways to test which elderly patients should receive the high-dose vaccine, and which will do just as well on the normal one.
“These types of tests are exactly designed to address differences in terms of personalized or precision medicine, and to better understand who are the older adults who truly benefit from and require the high dose vaccine as opposed to the regular vaccine,” he said.
The study is ongoing, and will enroll participants for this coming year beginning in early September.
