The Immunologic Response to Anti-Hepatitis B Vaccination Among Medical Students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences, Guilan, Iran

Background and Aims: An important way to prevent hepatitis B infection is vaccination especially among high-risk populations including healthcare workers. Unfortunately, immunologic response to the vaccine is not perfect. Multiple different factors such as gender, age, body mass index (BMI), smoking and underlying diseases can influence the immunologic response. So, this study was conducted to evaluate the post-vaccination immunologic response of medical students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences (GUMS).
Methods: In this cross-sectional study, GUMS medical students who had received complete vaccine series at zero, one, and six months were enrolled. Their demographic data and the factors which could probably alternate the immunologic response were collected by interview. The anti-HBs Ab titer was evaluated by Enzyme-Linked-Immunoassay (ELISA). Appropriate immunologic response was supposed to be HBsAb >=10 mIU/ml. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 10.00.P value <0.05 was considered significant.
Results: We evaluated 233 students with mean age of 24.9¡4.5 years. 74.7% were female. 4.9% did not respond properly to vaccination. Females' immunologic responses were significantly higher than males' (P=0.001). Responsiveness was significantly lower in smokers than non-smokers (P=0.02). Mean age in inappropriate and appropriate responder groups were 28.67¡5.4 and 24.77|¡|4.4 years, respectively (P=0.004).
Conclusions: 95.1% of students had a protective level of anti-HBsAb (>10 mIU/ml). Since health-care staffs including medical students are a high risk group to be contaminated with HBV, it is preferable to be evaluated for anti-HBs titer 1-3 months after full three-dose vaccination especially when these factors are present; in this way the false sense of
being immunized among them may be decreased.