Persistence of immunologic memory for 13 years in recipients of a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine.
All subjects in this clinical study gave informed written consent, and guidelines of the authors' institution regarding human experimentation were observed in the conduct of the study. A booster dose of vaccine given to 18 adolescents (immunized as children) and 7 older adults immunized 13 years earlier with a 3-dose course of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine induced a strong secondary antibody response, demonstrating that the vaccinees retained immunologic memory for HbsAG. Within one week, booster vaccination induced an 11 to 24-fold rise in the GMT of anti-HBs which continued, reaching 52 to 319-fold after 4 weeks. Significantly even the 5 individuals with less than 10 mIU/ml of anti-HBs prior to the booster all had impressive responses to the booster dose.
Watson
B
B
Albert Einstein Medical Center & The Philadelphia Department of Health, Division of Disease Control, Immunization Program, 500 S. Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA 19146, USA. barbara.watson@phila.gov
West
D J
DJ
Chilkatowsky
A
A
Piercy
S
S
Ioli
V A
VA
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006801:Humans; D007117:Immunization, Secondary; D007156:Immunologic Memory; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013997:Time Factors; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*
D006510:Hepatitis B Antibodies; D017325:Hepatitis B Vaccines; C075655:Recombivax HB; D014614:Vaccines, Synthetic