Liver Transplant for Hepatitis B

Topic Overview

During a liver transplant, your damaged liver is removed and replaced with a healthy one from an organ donor.
Liver transplantation is done to treat long-term (chronic) hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection only after all other treatments have not worked, because transplanted organs can become reinfected with HBV.

• Recurrent infections are often severe, leading to rapid failure of the transplanted liver.
• High doses of hepatitis B immunoglobulin (HBIG) are given to try to prevent reinfection.
• Short-term pre- and post-transplantation therapy with a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), such as entecavir, lamivudine, and tenofovir, may help prevent reinfection of a transplanted liver.¹
• Interferon and peginterferon are not used to prevent reinfection of a transplanted liver.¹

Liver transplants typically are done at large medical centers. Transplantation is very expensive.