Hepatitis B Virus_Surface Gene Mutations and Their Clinical Implications

Abstract

Hepatitis B infection is a major public health problem caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV). Factors associated with host immunity such as (HBV specific T- and/or B-cell) production and antigen presentation failure and viral determinants such as the HBV genotypes and their evolving variants, have largely contributed to and justified variations that occur in the HBV surface gene. Hepatitis B surface gene mutations may influence the accuracy of the results obtained with currently used serological diagnostic tests and may represent a great risk for the community, since neither hepatitis B vaccines nor hepatitis B immunoglobulin will prevent the infection by HBV. Out of 96 published papers from (1988 till 2016) downloaded from Google scholar and PubMed and evaluated according to the relevance of scientific data for the surface gene mutations of hepatitis B virus then52 papers of them were selected and included in this study, then we reviewed and evaluated the current published papers about the surface gene mutations worldwide in which G145R represents the most common hepatitis B surface gene mutation reported in the literature. Furthermore, we reviewed their clinical implications and their impact on hepatitis B vaccination and treatment.