March 29, 2021

Does my healthy 65-year old patient still need the 13 valet pneumococcal conjugate vaccine ( PCV13)?

Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine

https://www.ccjm.org/content/87/11/656

The short answer is no- Turns out that the incidence of PCV13 type pneumococcal disease in adults has diminished greatly, in part because kids started to be vaccinated in 2000 first with PCV 7 and then with PCV 13. If a patient is immunocompromised, has a CSF leak, or cochlear implants, then you might want to vaccinate them.