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In January 1984 a hepatitis B vaccination campaign was started in health care workers of Hospital of Parma. Within 3 years, of the 953 subjects submitted to serologic screening, 446 were eligible and 409, serum negative for HBV, completed the vaccination. 202 received HB-VAX vaccine (M.S.D.) intramusculary into the buttock at 0.1 and 6 months, and 208 received HEVAC-B vaccine (Pasteur) into deltoid region at 0, 1, 2 and 12 months. After the booster injection, percent of seroconversion (anti-HBs greater than 10 UI/l) and anti-HBs antibody titres were significantly (p less than 0.01) higher in HEVAC-B recipients (95.6%, mean anti-HBs titres = 6400 UI/l), than in the subjects vaccined with HB-VAX (77.1%, mean anti-HBs titres = 2703 UI/l). There was no significative difference in immune response in both groups with respect to age, sex or occupational category. Three hepatitis B infections were identified in HB-VAX recipients, but no one in individuals vaccined with HEVAC-B. No participants had serious adverse effects, minor side effects occurred with equal frequency in both groups. In general, both plasma-derived vaccines have proved to be highly immunogenic, safe and well tolerated in health care workers, however HEVAC-B vaccine, since contains S and pre-S ag, has shown a more satisfactory immunogenic effect.