HBV infection is a risk factor for chronic kidney disease: Systematic review and meta-analysis

The activity of hepatitis B virus (HBV) as a risk factor for the incidence and progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has not been clarified.

We evaluated the impact of infection with HBV on the risk of CKD in the general population.

We carried out a systematic review of the published medical literature to assess whether a relationship between hepatitis B infection and an increased risk of CKD in the adult general population occurs. We adopted the random effects model of DerSimonian and Laird to provide a summary estimate of the risk of chronic kidney disease (defined by lowered glomerular filtration rate and/or detectable proteinuria) with HBV infection across the published studies. Meta-regression and stratified analyses were also performed.

We retrieved 33 studies (n = 7,849,849 patients) published in 26 different articles, and separate meta-analyses were performed according to the outcome. Pooling results from cohort studies (11 studies, n = 1,056,645 patients) demonstrated a relationship between positive HBV serologic status and increased incidence of CKD, the summary estimate for adjusted HR with HBV across the surveys, 1.40 (95% CI, 1.16-1.69) (P < .001). Between-study heterogeneity was noted (Q value, 49.5, P < .0001). No relationship between HBV and prevalence of CKD was noted in the subset of cross-sectional studies (10 studies; n = 3,222,545 patients), adjusted OR, 1.04 (95% IC 0.90-1.218; P = .5). Meta-regression analysis reported a relationship between positive HBsAg status and incidence of CKD in the general population (P < .015).

It appears that exposure to HBV infection seems to be associated with an increased risk of developing CKD in the adult general population. Studies aimed to understand the mechanisms responsible of such association are under way.