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The 20-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV-20, marketed as Prevnar-20) rode to market in 2021 on the coattails of its 13-valent predecessor (PCV-13, marketed as Prevnar). Because PCV-20 simply adds 7 additional serotypes to PCV-13, it was approved for use on the basis of in vitro immunogenicity alone. This manufacturer-supported trial is the first available clinical evaluation of the vaccine’s performance.
Researchers mined the U.S. Medicare database to identify 16 million older adults (age, ≥65) who had not received any recent pneumococcal vaccination as of May 2022. About 2 million of them received PCV-20 during the next 2 years; their frequency of relevant clinical diagnoses during that time was compared retrospectively with…