The higher frequency of ED visits and hospitalizations in TIV-Libraries vaccinated cohorts compared with those vaccinated with LAIV suggests that at the time of vaccination, the TIV-vaccinated children overall had poorer health status. This is consistent with providers avoiding LAIV use and actively encouraging TIV use in high-risk children. Given the

small number of children vaccinated with LAIV Selleck AC220 in the identified cohorts, the current study could only have identified a large relative risk of a serious adverse outcome postvaccination. Cumulatively, the number of children in each cohort across seasons could detect with 95% probability at least one event occurring at the following frequencies or greater: among the <24-month-olds, 4.4 per 1000; among children with asthma or wheezing, 1 per 1000; and among the immunocompromised, 3 per 1000. The fact that no safety signals were identified is consistent with the existing data on LAIV safety in this age group. As previously mentioned, LAIV was not approved in children <24 months of age because of an increased rate of wheezing and hospitalization in a previous study. Because of the small number of children identified, the current study lacked the power to detect similar outcomes in the children <24 months of age who received LAIV. Other warnings and precautions against the use of LAIV in individuals 2–49

years of age with high-risk underlying medical conditions [16] arise from a lack of find more data to establish safety rather than documented safety risks. Clinical studies of LAIV have been conducted in children with mild to moderate asthma [10] and [17], elderly adults with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [18], children and adults infected with HIV [19], [20] and [21], and a small number

of mild to moderately immunocompromised children see more with cancer [22] and have not raised concerns of serious safety risks following LAIV administration. Existing anonymized health insurance claims data can be very useful for monitoring the use and safety of health-related interventions. They are associated with very large and diverse patient populations and diverse clinical practices. In addition, neither the patients nor clinicians are influenced by the study protocol. However, there are also several potential limitations inherent to this approach. Although accuracy of coding for specific diseases may vary by disease, the coding for pharmaceuticals and procedures, such as vaccination, are highly specific. Whereas this study used ICD-9-CM diagnosis codes to identify conditions such as asthma and those requiring immunosuppressive therapy, it also applied coding for pharmaceuticals as a surrogate for asthma or wheezing. In addition, we required 2 diagnosis claims to identify children with asthma. This approach helped to exclude individuals for whom a diagnosis claim was used to indicate medical care performed to “rule out” some condition of interest.