Hepatitis B and liver transplantation.

Hepatitis B and liver transplantation. Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol. 2017 Nov 10;: Authors: Ferrarese A, Zanetto A, Russo FP Abstract Liver transplantation (LT) is the only effective treatment for hepatitis B-virus (HBV) related end stage liver disease, even if the outcome of these patients, has significantly improved after introduction of effective and well tolerated nucleos/tide analogues (NUC). Pre-transplant therapy has been initially based on lamivudine, but entecavir and tenofovir represent the currently recommended first-line therapeutic option in patients with HBV decompensated cirrhosis. After LT, the development of hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) in the early 1990s change dramatically the prognosis of these patients by reducing the incidence of HBV recurrence and increasing survival rate. Combination of HBIG and NUC is now considered as the standard of care for prophylaxis against HBV recurrence, however personalized therapeutic algorithms based on pre and post-transplant viral and host factors have been proposed. Finally, liver grafts from hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) positive donors and from hepatitis B antigens (HBsAg) positive donors can be safely used in selected patients. PMID: 29125261 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Minerva Gastroenterologica e Dietologica - Category: Gastroenterology Tags: Minerva Gastroenterol Dietol Source Type: research