Increased risk for herpetic eye disease in patients with allergic conjunctivitis

Purpose: To evaluate the risk of ocular surface herpetic eye disease (osHED) in allergic eye disease. Methods: We calculated the risk for osHED in 11,205 patients on antiallergic ocular topical agents compared with 453,069 controls based on filled prescriptions for topical acyclovir between 2001 and 2003. Results: Significantly more allergic patients, of all age groups, received treatment for osHED (p < 0.01). The age and gender adjusted relative risk for allergic patients to suffer an osHED event was 2.31 (95% CI: 1.84-2.90), raising to 3.55 (95% CI: 2.0-6.4) in patients that filled ≥4 antiallergic prescriptions. Conclusions: Patients treated for allergic eye disease have an increased risk of osHED.