Studies On Some Main Points Of Clinical Characteristics And Molecular Virology Of Chronic HBV Infections With HBeAg-negative

Both HBeAg-positive and HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B (CHB) are popular in China, and the prevalence, clinical and histological features of HBeAg-negative group have not been fully studied. To elucidate those, a total of 743 successive in-patients with biopsy-proved CHB were included to analyse correlation of HBV DNA levels with alanine transaminase (ALT) values and liver histology. Of them 267 (35.9%) patients were HBeAg-negative and 476 (64.1%) HBeAg-positive. The HBeAg-negative group had significantly lower serologic HBV DNA levels (P<0.001), but more severe inflammation and fibrosis (both P<0.001) of liver histology compared with the HBeAg-positive group. In this group, increasing HBV DNA levels were associated with significantly higher inflammation and fibrosis scores and higher ALT levels (both PO.001); however, it was not the case in HBeAg-positive cases. There was an reverse correlation between HBV DNA levels and histology scores or ALT levels in HBeAg-positive patients (both P<0.001). Therefore, on clinical and histological background, the chronic HBeAg-negative hepatitis B is a different subpopulation from the HBeAg-positive counterpart.