THE PREVALENCE OF HEPATITIS B REACTIVATION (HBV) IN CANCER PATIENTS TREATING WITH CHEMOTHERAPY

ackground and Objectives: Nowadays, the incidence of cancer is constantly increasing in the world as well as in Vietnam. The treatment of cancer is based on multimodality principle. Among those principal modalities, chemotherapy is widely used for different purposes such as neoadjuvant, andjuvant and palliation. However, chemotherapy can induce activation of latent infections, including hepatitis B. Vietnam is in the endemic region of hepatitis B so the reactivation of hepatitis B on cancer patients with chemotherapy has emerged a concerned problem. However, few interests were gained on this problem in the aspect of clinical setting or researching. Aims: to determine the prevalence of hepatitis B reactivation (HBV) in cancer patients treating with chemotherapy and to detect some risks factors of this situation. Subjects and methods: descriptive prospective. The study included 33 cancer patients with inactive HBV infection who are treating with chemotherapy. We define HBV reactivation by ALT > 3 ULN and HBV DNA copies > 10 positive control limit. Results: We found 6 patients with reactivated HBV, accounting for 18.18 %. Among reactivated HBV patients, age less than 60 accounts 83,33%. Rate of reactivated HBV in males was 25,00% while this rate in females was 14,28%. Rate of reactivated HBV in lymphoma, lung cancer and breast cancer was 33,33%, 25% và 22,22% respectively. Clinial manifestation of reactivated HBV includes jaundice (33,33%), fulminant hepatic failure (6%) and death (5%). The reactivated rate was higher in patients got high dose of corticoid (28,57%) vs low dose (15,38%). This rate was 29,41% in patients treated with anthracyclines which was higher than in group without anthracyclines. The reactivated rate of HBV was dramatically higher in patients treated with rituximab (75%). Conclusion: the reactivation of hepatitis B on cancer patients with chemotherapy is common. We found 6 patients with reactivated HBV of 33 subjects of the study which accounts 18.18 %. We recognized that reactivated HBV rate was higher subgroups of age < 60 years old, males, patients with lymphoma, lung cancer, breast cancer. Reactivated HBV may be more prevalent in patients with high-dose corticotherapy, anthracyclines and Rituximab. Key words: HBV reactivation, chemotherapy, cancer, hepatitis B