Inactive Hepatitis B Carrier and Pregnancy Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta–analysis

BACKGROUND: We aimed to explore whether maternal asymptomatic hepatitis B (HB) infection effects on pre-term rupture of membranous (PROM), stillbirth, preeclampsia, eclampsia, gestational hypertension, or antepartum hemorrhage. METHODS: We searched the PubMed, Scopus, and ISI web of science from 1990 to Feb 2015. In addition, electronic literature searches supplemented by searching the gray literature (e.g., conference abstracts thesis and the result of technical reports) and scanning the reference lists of included studies and relevant systematic reviews. We explored statistical heterogeneity using the, I2 and tau-squared (Tau2) statistical tests. RESULTS: Eighteen studies were included. Preterm rupture of membranous (PROM), stillbirth, preeclampsia, eclampsia, gestational hypertension and antepartum hemorrhage were considerable outcomes in this survey. The results showed no significant association between inactive HB and these complications in pregnancy. The small amounts of P-value and chi-square and large amount of I2 suggested the probable heterogeneity in this part, which we tried to modify with statistical methods such as subgroup analysis. CONCLUSION: Inactive HB infection did not increase the risk of adversely mentioned outcomes in this study. Further, well-designed studies should be performed to confirm the results.