BACKGROUND/AIMS Hepatitis B is the most important infectious cause of acute and chronic liver disease. Hepatitis B vaccine, a highly purified, genetically engineered, single antigen vaccine, has generally been accepted as a safe vaccine. In 2000, the Institute of Medicine noted that few vaccines for any disease have been actively monitored for adverse effects over long periods and encouraged ev...

PURPOSE In spite of the success of hepatitis B immunization, still a significant proportion of childhood hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) failed to be prevented by the hepatitis B immunization program. This study is aimed to investigate the problems in the HCC prevention in children. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN All HCC children ages 6 to 14 diagnosed between 1981 and 2000 in Taiwan were collected from ...

Chronic hepatitis B is a worldwide disease, with significant burden on health care systems. While universal vaccination programs have led to an overall decrease in incidence of transmission of hepatitis B, unfortunately, there remain large areas in the world where vaccination against hepatitis B is not practiced. In addition, vertical transmission of hepatitis B persists as a major concern. Hep...

background: triple-course vaccination against hepatitis b might sometimes fail to increase antibody titers or maintain it at sufficient levels. the aim of this study was to evaluate the rate of seroprotection in dental students after receiving recombinant hepatitis b vaccine.     methods: anti-hbs levels of 124 dental students who had received triple-course hepatitis b vaccines (scheduled at mo...

We read with interest the article by Taheri et al. regarding the efficacy of Hepatitis B vaccine in those who lost Hepatitis B surface antigen (HbsAg) during follow up (1). As the authors mentioned, a protective anti-HBs level developed in 24% of chronic HBsAg-positive subjects who had already lost their HBsAg after hepatitis B vaccination, and the remaining cases need to be monitored for occul...

background: due to their similar routes of transmission, human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) and hepatitis b virus (hbv) co-infection occurs considerably. hbv infection progresses more rapidly in hiv-infected patients. therefore, hbv vaccination of all non-immune hiv infected patients is recommended. on the other hand, hiv-infected subjects have suboptimal responses to hbv vaccine. in this study...

we measured the prevalence of hbv surface antigen (hbsag) among male injection drug users (idus) in detention, tehran, iran. a cross-sectional survey included 499 male idus arrested by police during a predetermined police sweep in tehran (february, 2006). a questionnaire was filled out for each individual. blood specimens were collected for hbsag testing. prevalence of hbsag was 5.8% (95% ci 3....