The Recombinant Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Vaccine in Persons With HIV: Is Seroconversion Sufficient for Long-term Protection?

A cohort of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)–infected individuals with documented vaccine-induced hepatitis B surface antibody (HBsAb) seroconversion was evaluated retrospectively to determine factors associated with loss of protective levels of HBsAb. After a median follow-up of 43 months, 111 of the 152 participants (73%) maintained protective levels of HBsAb. HIV RNA suppression at vacci-nation was associated with persistence of protective levels of HBsAb (odds ratio, 3.83; P <.01). Booster doses were pro-vided for those with loss of protective antibody levels, and hepatitis B virus–specific immune memory, as evaluated with T-cell proliferation assays, was poor despite the obser-vation that boosters successfully reinduced protective levels of HBsAb. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human immunodeficiency viru