Objective: To investigate the risk of stroke development following a diagnosis of herpes zoster ophthalmicus (HZO). Methods: Data were retrospectively collected from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database. The study cohort comprised all patients with a diagnosis of HZO (ICD-9-CM code 053.2) in 2003 and 2004 (n = 658). The comparison cohort was comprised of randomly selected patients (3 for every HZO patient, n = 1974) matched with the study group in terms of age and gender. Patients were tracked from their index visits for 1 year. ...
