Acute Liver Failure Caused by the Transmission of Hepatitis B Virus from the Spouse after 38 Years of Marriage

A 65-year-old man presented with acute liver failure and grade IV coma caused by hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in 2017. The patient died on day 12 from the disease onset. The HBV isolated from the patient was genotype/subgenotype B/B1 and had multiple genomic mutations. The patient's wife was hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive when she delivered her first daughter in 1979. The HBV isolates of the patient and the wife shared 100% similarity over the entire genome. Because the patient's HBsAg value had been negative one year earlier, we considered the source of HBV transmission to be his wife.