[Chronic hepatitis B: unusual situations: dialysis, renal transplantation and pre-emptive therapy in immune...

Parenteral and community-acquired routes of contamination sanguins of hepatitis B virus (HBV) explain its frequency (9 to 20%) in dialysis patients and kidney recipients. In dialysis, HBV infection has few impact on morbidity and mortality; by contrast, in kidney recipients HBV: 1. reduces the allograft survival; 2. the patients survival in association with a frequent and rapid evolution to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma or rare cholestatic fibrosis. Finally, cirrhosis contra-indicates renal transplantation alone given its poor short-term prognosis and a combined liver-kidney transplantation has to be discussed. Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the liver severity of the liver disease. The treatement of HBV in allograft recipients and dialysis is based on nucleos(t)idic analogues like in the general population with the same advantages and questions. The variations of the immune status either in an HBV-infected patients at the induction or at the reduction of chemotherapies (solid tumors or hemopathies) or allograft transplantation may result in two, potentially severe, events in miror: a reactivation or a spontaneous discontinuation of viral replication (seronconversion). These risks evidence that any HBs Ag carrier exposed to immune suppression has to be diagnosed, evaluated for viral replication and underlying liver disease and has to be treated by a so-called pre-emptive treatment based on analogues.