Liver Transplantation in Delta Virus Infection

Liver transplantation is the only therapy for patients with end-stage liver disease, hepatocellular carcinoma, or fulminant hepatitis due to hepatitis D virus (HDV) and hepatitis B virus (HBV) coinfection or superinfection. Patients chronically coinfected with HDV are less at risk of HBV recurrence and have a better survival rate than patients infected with HBV alone. Patients coinfected with HDV generally do not require pretransplant antiviral therapy. Rates of recurrent HBV-HDV infection are lower than 5% using low-dose intramuscular (IM) HBIg and antiviral prophylaxis in combination. Few studies have evaluated the possibility of using shorter-term HBIg (12-24 months) then switching to antiviral therapy. Although HBV replication can be controlled by potent HBV-polymerase inhibitors, reappearance of HBsAg and/or the persistence of HBV DNA in serum, liver, or peripheral blood mononuclear cells might have deleterious consequences in the setting of HBV-HDV coinfection as they may provide the biologic substrate to the reactivation of HDV. No effective antiviral drug is available for the treatment of graft infection with HDV.