Application of a refined fibrosis staging system to evaluate therapeutic efficacy in chronic viral hepatitis / 中华肝脏病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To generate a refined staging system of fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis and to assess its accuracy and sensitivity for evaluating therapeutic efficacy of anti-fibrosis drug treatments.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A refined fibrosis staging system was established according to the detailed characteristics of progressive fibrosis. A total of 396 liver puncture biopsy specimens were collected from patients before and after anti-fibrosis therapy and used to evaluate the refined staging system. According to the original fibrosis staging system and refined fibrosis staging system, fibrosis staging differences from before and after treatment were analyzed by Chi-squared test and paired-samples t-test respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The refined fibrosis staging system detected significant changes in fibrosis stage that occurred in response to treatment (before treatment: 6.55 +/- 2.93 vs. after treatment: 6.19 +/- 2.945, P less than 0.01). However, the original (unrefined) staging system was unable to differentiate therapy-related changes in fibrosis stage (x2= 3.144, P = 0.534).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The newly-developed refined fibrosis staging system was able to effectively evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of anti-fibrosis drug treatment and performed better than the original staging system.</p>

PD-1/PD-L1 expressions in liver tissues of patients with chronic HBV infection / 中华肝脏病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To detect and compare the PD-1/PD-L1 (programmed death 1/programmed death 1 ligand) expressions in the liver tissues of chronic HBV infection patients in immune tolerant phase and those in immune clearance phase.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Liver biopsy samples were divided into two groups: 25 samples from patients in immune clearance phase and 19 samples from patients in immune tolerant phase. PD-1/PD-L1 expressions on T lymphocytes in these liver biopsy specimens were detected by immunohistochemistry method. Percentage of PD-1/PD-L1 positive cells among CD3 positive cells was calculated by semi-quantitative evaluation. Differences between the two groups were statistically analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>PD-1/PD-L1 expressions were significantly higher in the patients in immune tolerant phase as compared to that in immune active phase (P < 0.05). No statistical difference found between the two groups for PD-L1 expression in Kupffer cells (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>PD-1/PD-L1 expression level can reflect the immune functions of chronic hepatitis B patients.</p>