The duration of hepatitis B vaccine immunity in pediatric dialysis patients.

Background: Dialysis patients are at risk for hepatitis B infection, a serious but preventable disease. Long-term hepatitis B protection has not been defined in pediatric patients with chronic kidney disease stage 5 on dialysis (CKD 5D) who were vaccinated as infants or children.

Methods: Annual hepatitis B antibody surveillance data were collected retrospectively on a cohort of pediatric CKD 5D patients (n = 202) at a single institution and analyzed by survival analysis to assess hepatitis B immunity duration.

Results: Median duration of immunity by Kaplan-Meier analysis since primary vaccination was 106.3 [95 % confidence interval (CI) 93.9, 124.4] months. After the initiation of dialysis, the median duration of hepatitis B immunity was 37.1 (95 % CI 24.2, 72.3) months. Multivariate adjusted analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the duration of hepatitis immunity based on the timing of hepatitis B vaccination (p < 0.001). Patients immunized after starting dialysis had a hazard ratio of 6.13 (95 % CI 2.87, 13.08) for hepatitis B immunity loss compared to patients immunized as infants (p < 0.001).

Conclusions: After dialysis initiation, protective hepatitis B antibody levels wane rapidly, with a shortened duration of immunity. In our cohort of pediatric patients with CKD 5D, this decline was more pronounced in children who were immunized after starting dialysis than in those who received hepatitis B immunizations during childhood. Both groups of patients should be monitored with serial antibody titers.