Department of Cardiac Thoracic Vascular Sciences and Public Health, University of Padova, 35128 Padova, Italy.
Environment and Health Department, Istituto Superiore di Sanità, 00161 Rome, Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020 Jan 2;17(1):327. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17010327.
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the major infectious hazards for health-care workers (HCWs) because of the frequency of percutaneous exposures to blood or body fluids. For this reason, all HCWs should be vaccinated, including students in medicine and health professional degree programs. The aim of this study was to assess the immune coverage to anti-HBV vaccine and long-lasting protective titres of anti-HBs antibodies in female and male students to evaluate gender-related differences in response to HBV vaccination. Data relative to anti-HBs antibody titre, sex, age, and age at vaccination were collected and analyzed from 5291 Italian students (1812 males and 3479 females) of the graduate courses at the School of Medicine, who underwent the mandatory health surveillance of workers exposed to biological risk. The results indicated that gender affects the immune response to HBV vaccine, particularly evident in the case of females vaccinated after one year of age who exhibited a statistically significant ( = 0.0023) 1.21-fold increase in median antibody titre with respect to males. Our findings could contribute to the optimization of HBV vaccination schedules in health surveillance of HCWs.
乙型肝炎病毒 (HBV) 感染是医疗保健工作者 (HCWs) 的主要感染危害之一，因为他们经常会接触到血液或体液。出于这个原因，所有 HCWs 都应该接种疫苗，包括医学和健康专业学位课程的学生。本研究旨在评估女性和男性学生对乙型肝炎疫苗的免疫覆盖率和抗-HBs 抗体的长期保护效价，以评估乙型肝炎疫苗接种反应中的性别差异。从医学院研究生课程的 5291 名意大利学生（1812 名男性和 3479 名女性）中收集了与抗-HBs 抗体效价、性别、年龄以及接种疫苗时的年龄相关的数据，并进行了分析，这些学生都接受了接触生物风险的工人的强制性健康监测。结果表明，性别会影响乙型肝炎疫苗的免疫反应，对于 1 岁以后接种疫苗的女性来说，这种影响尤为明显，与男性相比，女性的抗体效价中位数增加了 1.21 倍，具有统计学意义（=0.0023）。我们的研究结果可能有助于优化 HCWs 健康监测中的乙型肝炎疫苗接种计划。
