A study on hepatitis B vaccination after liver transplantation

Currently, most patients undergoing liver transplantation in China are patients with hepatitis B-related diseases, and this group of people still faces the risk of hepatitis B virus reinfection and hepatitis recurrence after surgery, and how to prevent hepatitis B recurrence is an important topic. Lamivudine and hepatitis B immunoglobulin HBIG can effectively reduce the re-infection and recurrence of hepatitis B virus after liver transplantation, but long-term use of lamivudine has caused the mutation of the YMDD gene of HBV DNA polymerase, which has attracted the attention of scholars, and the long-term use of HBIG has the risk of mercury poisoning, and it is expensive. Therefore, long-term or even lifelong use of these two drugs to prevent recurrence of hepatitis B is not desirable. Since the 1990s, foreign scholars began to try to use active immunization program – hepatitis B vaccine. However, the results of using traditional hepatitis B vaccine are disappointing. Recently, it was found that the third generation recombinant vaccine combined with immunomodulatory adjuvant (containing S,pre-S1 and S2 proteins) could produce a sustained immune response in transplant patients. In 2007, Prof. Lo Chung-mau of Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, reported that the use of the third generation recombinant Hepatitis B vaccine resulted in 35% of the transplanted patients with antibody titers exceeding 100 IU/L when lamivudine was a continuous application, and in a German In a study in Germany, the effective response could be more than 50%. Currently, our institute is planning to vaccinate patients after liver transplantation with hepatitis B vaccine, and our criteria for vaccination are as follows: 1) Hepatitis B related disease after 12 months of liver transplantation; 2) Good health, no transplantation related complications; 3) HBSAg (-), HBV DNA (-), and aminotransferases are at normal level before vaccination. The third-generation recombinant hepatitis B vaccine was used with double doses, with months 0, 1, and 2 as the first cycle and months 6, 7, and 8 as the second cycle. Anti-HBs titer test timing is exactly at the next injection of HBIG before the last injection within 6 months after the anti-HBs titer consistently more than 100iu/L for a positive response The results of the pre-vaccination of the response is not uniform, some populations did not achieve a positive response, but some patients are better, individual antibody titer reached 1000iu, completely discontinued the use of hepatitis B immune globulin, this area of work We are still working on this.