Hepatitis A vaccine protects hemodialysis patients from viral infection.

2002 NOV 6 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Hepatitis A vaccine is a feasible way to protect end-stage kidney disease patients from infection, according to a new study.

Reporting in the journal Nephrology, Dialysis, and Transplantation, researchers in Belgium and Germany have concluded hepatitis A vaccination can offer kidney disease patients on hemodialysis a way to avoid hepatitis A virus (HAV) infection.

"Forty-three subjects were vaccinated with an inactivated hepatitis A vaccine according to a 0-, 1-, and 6-month immunization schedule," said Erwin Hermann Fleischmann, an investigator at the University of Erlangen Nurnberg in Germany.

Approximately two-thirds of the study participants received the vaccine intramuscularly, with the remainder receiving subcutaneous injections.

All individuals in the intramuscular injection group and all but one in the subcutaneous group developed hepatitis A antibodies, Weber and colleagues indicated (Active immunization against hepatitis A in dialysis patients. Nephrol Dial Transplant, 2002;17(10):1825-1828).

Geometric mean titers (GMTs) were the highest among those vaccinated subcutaneously although both groups developed GMTs similar to those of healthy ...