PLoS ONE (Jan 2014)

Hepatitis B vaccine responsiveness and clinical outcomes in HIV controllers.

  • Jason F Okulicz,
  • Octavio Mesner,
  • Anuradha Ganesan,
  • Thomas A O'Bryan,
  • Robert G Deiss,
  • Brian K Agan

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0105591
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9, no. 8
p. e105591

Abstract

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BackgroundHepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine responsiveness is associated with reduced risk of AIDS or death in HIV-infected individuals. Although HIV controllers (HIC) typically have favorable immunologic and clinical characteristics compared to non-controllers, vaccine responsiveness has not been studied.Methods and findingsIn the U.S. Military HIV Natural History Study, HBV vaccine response was defined as antibody to hepatitis B surface antigen (anti-HBs) ≥ 10 IU/L after last vaccination. For determination of vaccine responsiveness, HIC (n = 44) and treatment-naïve non-controllers (n = 476) were not on highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) when vaccinated while treated non-controllers (n = 284) received all HBV vaccine doses during viral load (VL)-suppressive HAART. Progression to AIDS or death was also compared for all HIC (n = 143) and non-controllers (n = 1566) with documented anti-HBs regardless of the timing of HBV vaccination. Positive vaccine responses were more common in HIC (65.9%) compared to HAART-naïve non-controllers (36.6%; PConclusionsHIC have improved HBV vaccine responsiveness compared to treatment-naïve non-controllers, but similar to those on VL-suppressive HAART. Progression to AIDS or death can be predicted by HBV vaccine responder status for non-controllers, however these events are rarely observed in HIC.