ReviewFrontiers in medicine2018
Hepatitis B Virus Blood Screening: Need for Reappraisal of Blood Safety Measures?
Review in Frontiers in medicine, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 38 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
38 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Global epidemiology of occult hepatitis B virus infections in blood donors, a systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2022Pooled it
- Occult hepatitis B infection among blood donors from Yaoundé, Cameroon.Blood transfusion = Trasfusione del sangue · 2019Trial
- High Burden of Occult Hepatitis B Infection in HIV-Infected Patients in Southern Vietnam: Insights from Serological and Molecular Analysis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Article
- Population immunity to hepatitis B virus and infection marker seroprevalence in Belgrade, Serbia.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Review
- Prevalence and Implications of Occult Hepatitis B Virus Infection Among Blood Donors in Saudi Arabia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Hepatitis B Serological Immunity and Exposure Among Blood Donors in Southern Croatia: A Cross-Sectional Study.Vaccines · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Molecular Characterization of Chronic and Occult Hepatitis B Virus Infection Among Pregnant Women in St. Petersburg, Russia.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- The "Grey Zone" in Blood Donor Screening: A Retrospective Study and Proposal for Donor Re-Entry.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Transfusion Risks of Occult Hepatitis B Infection Among HBcAb-Positive Blood Donors in a High-Endemic Region.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- An agent-based model to simulate the transmission dynamics of bloodborne pathogens within hospitals.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- Transfusion-transmitted occult hepatitis B virus infection: current understanding, challenges, and its implication in blood safety.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Article
- Review
- Seroprevalence of hepatitis C, hepatitis B, hiv and syphilis among blood donors at a tertiary care hospital in Mogadishu-Somalia in 2020-2022: a retrospective study.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Cost-benefit analysis of serological and nucleic acid testing for hepatitis B virus in blood donors in southern China.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Article
- Low Prevalence of Anti-HBc Antibody and Lack of HBV DNA Among HBsAg-Negative Blood Donors in Iran: A Cross-sectional Study and Review of Literature.Archives of Iranian medicine · 2024Review
- Article
- Establishing a screening strategy for non-discriminatory reactive blood donors by constructing a predictive model of hepatitis B virus infection status from a single blood center in China.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the past decades, the risk of HBV transfusion-transmission has been steadily reduced through the recruitment of volunteer donors, the selection of donors based on risk-behavior evaluation, the development of increasingly more sensitive hepatitis B antigen (HBsAg) assays, the use of hepatitis B core antibody (anti-HBc) screening in some low-endemic countries, and the recent implementation of HBV nucleic acid testing (NAT). Despite this accumulation of blood safety measures, the desirable zero risk goal has yet to be achieved. The residual risk of HBV transfusion-transmission appears associated with the preseroconversion window period and occult HBV infection characterized by the absence of detectable HBsAg and extremely low levels of HBV DNA. Infected donations tested false-negative with serology and/or NAT still persist and derived blood components were shown to transmit the virus, although rarely. Questions regarding the apparent redundancy of some safety measures prompted debates on how to reduce the cost of HBV blood screening. In particular, accumulating data strongly suggests that HBsAg testing may add little, if any HBV risk reduction value when HBV NAT and anti-HBc screening also apply. Absence or minimal acceptable infectious risk needs to be assessed before considering discontinuing HBsAg. Nevertheless, HBsAg remains essential in high-endemic settings where anti-HBc testing cannot be implemented without compromising blood availability. HBV screening strategy should be decided according to local epidemiology, estimate of the infectious risk, and resources.
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