effect of serum zinc levels on humoral immune response to hepatitis b vaccination in patients on dialysis

introduction: zinc deficiency causes abnormalities in immune response. in chronic hemodialysis (hd) and continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (capd) patients, impaired immune responses to vaccination have been reported. therefore, we performed a study to determine the correlation between serum zinc levels and immune response to hepatitis b vaccination in patients on dialysis. methods: a cross-sectional study including 95 crf patients on dialysis (70 hd and 25 capd), (63 male and 32 female) with three dose regimens of vaccination against hbv was performed. results: four months after vaccination, there were 34 (36%) patients with sufficient hbs antibody response (hbs ab≥ 10 mu/ml ) and 61 ( 64% ) patients with insufficient hbs antibody response( hbs ab< 10mu/ml ). the mean serum zinc level was 23.35±3.87 micmol/l (13.20-33 micmol/l). the mean serum zinc concentration was significantly higher in patients with sufficient hbs antibody level than patients with insufficient hbs antibody levels ( 24.94±4.17 versus 22.15±3.46, p= 0.005 ). in logistic regression analysis, independent variables that correlated with sufficient hbs ab level ≥ 10 mu/ml included higher mean serum zinc level [or=1.44 (1.02-2.02), p=0.006 ] and female gender [or=1.8 (1.01-4.01), p=0.048] . factors found to be insignificant included type of dialysis, age, diabetes mellitus as a cause of esrd, serum creatinine and albumin levels. conclusion: we conclude that failure to respond to hbv vaccination is significantly related to a low levels of serum zinc. however, clinical trial studies should be performed in order to confirm this finding.