Tehran University of Medical Sciences Iranian Journal of Microbiology 2008-3289 6 5 2014 10 15 350 353 EN Mohammad Reza Aghasadeghi Hepatitis and AIDS Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Mohammad Banifazl Iranian Society for Support of Patients with Infectious Diseases, Tehran, Iran. Arezoo Aghakhani Clinical Research Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Ali Eslamifar Clinical Research Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Rouhollah Vahabpour Hepatitis and AIDS Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. Amitis Ramezani Clinical Research Department, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran, Iran. 2015 10 16 Background and Objective: Although hepatitis B vaccine immunogenicity is high, certain risk factors such as age, tobacco consumption, obesity and genetic background have been associated with low responsiveness to HBV vaccine. We aimed to evaluate the role of occult hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in non-responder adults to HBV vaccine in a low endemic area for HBV. Material and Methods: A total of 52 subjects who were non-responder to HBV vaccine were enrolled in the study. HBsAg, anti-HBs and anti-HBc were tested in all subjects. The presence of HBV-DNA was determined in plasma samples by real- time PCR. Results: A total of 52 cases with median age 34 years were enrolled in the study. 63.5% of patients were male and 36.5% were female. Isolated anti-HBc (HBsAg negative, anti-HBs negative and anti-HBc positive) was detected in 3.8% of cases. HBV-DNA was not detected in our cases. Conclusion: This study showed no evidence of occult HBV infection in our HBV vaccine non-responders even in cases with isolated anti-HBc. https://ijm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijm/article/view/372 https://ijm.tums.ac.ir/index.php/ijm/article/download/372/149