Tsutsumi Y, Yamamoto Y, Ito S, Ohigashi H, Shiratori S, Naruse H, Teshima T. Hepatitis B virus reactivation with a rituximab-containing regimen. World J Hepatol 2015; 7(21): 2344-2351 [PMID: 26413224 DOI: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i21.2344]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Yutaka Tsutsumi, MD, PhD, Department of Hematology, Hakodate Municipal Hospital, 1-10-1, Minato-cho, Hakodate 041-8680, Japan. yutsutsu@shore.ocn.ne.jp
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Yutaka Tsutsumi, Shinichi Ito, Hiroyuki Ohigashi, Souichi Shiratori, Department of Hematology, Hakodate Municipal Hospital, Hakodate 041-8680, Japan
Yoshiya Yamamoto, Hirohito Naruse, Department of Gastroenterology, Hakodate Municipal Hospital, Hakodate 041-8680, Japan
Takanori Teshima, Department of Hematology, Hokkaido University Graduate School of Medicine, Sapporo 060-0808, Japan
Author contributions: Tsutsumi Y, Ito S, Ohigashi H, Yamamoto Y, Shiratori S, Naruse H and Teshima T contributed equally to this report.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors indicated no potential conflict of interest in this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Yutaka Tsutsumi, MD, PhD, Department of Hematology, Hakodate Municipal Hospital, 1-10-1, Minato-cho, Hakodate 041-8680, Japan. yutsutsu@shore.ocn.ne.jp
Telephone: +81-138-432000 Fax: +81-138-434426
Received: April 20, 2015 Peer-review started: April 22, 2015 First decision: July 25, 2015 Revised: August 19, 2015 Accepted: September 7, 2015 Article in press: September 8, 2015 Published online: September 28, 2015 Processing time: 155 Days and 13.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: For preventive measures against hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation during rituximab treatment, hepatitis B surface (HBs) antigen positive and HBc antibody positive/HBs antibody negative patients are subject to prophylactic treatment with nucleoside analogs. During rituximab treatment, the HBV-DNA levels of patients who are HBc antibody positive (HBs antibody positive or negative) are ideally monitored with PCR once a month. If the PCR results are positive, the administration of nucleoside analogs is initiated. However, since monitoring HBV-DNA levels is expensive, it might be preferable to follow the HBs antibodies instead. Due to wide differences in the insurance situations in each country, including the follow-up intervals, further research must determine ideal follow-up intervals. However, no standard exists for the timing of this treatment’s termination. For HBs antigen negative patients who also receive nucleoside analog treatment, it will be necessary in the future to evaluate the possibility of switching to a vaccine when a patient becomes HBs antibody positive.
