The relationship between different serum HBeAg levels and pathological stages of patients with chronic hepatitis B / 中华传染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To investigate the relationship between serum HBeAg level and inflammation grade (G)/fibrosis stage (S) in the liver tissues of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients in the immune clearance phase (IC). Methods Both liver biopsy samples and serum samples were consecutively collected from CHB patients in Liver Center,First Affiliated Hospital,Fujian Medical University during March 2007 to June 2010.Electro-chemiluminescence and fluorogenic quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods were used to determine HBeAg titer and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA level,respectively.The relationships between HBeAg titer and liver pathological stages were analyzed using Spearman rank correlation analysis.Receive operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the diagnostic value of HBeAg for liver pathological stages.Results Totally 249 patients with CHB were enrolled into this study.The serum HBeAg absorbances in patients with liver inflammation G1 to G4 were (2.93±2.85),(2.96±2.74),(2.69±2.67) and (2.30±2.41) lg s/co,respectively,while those in patients with liver fibrosis S1 to S4 were (2.99±2.74),(2.89±2.73),(2.58±2.55) and (2.32±2.44) lg s/co,respectively,which indicated that serum HBeAg titers were significant different in patients with different grading and staging of liver tissues (x2 =47.13,P＜0.01; x2 =74.12,P＜0.01).Spearman rank correlation analysis showed that serum HBeAg titer was negatively correlated with inflammation grades and fibrosis stages of liver tissues (r=-0.418 and-0.532,respectively; both P＜0.01).ROC curve analysis revealed that the areas under the curve (AUC) were 0.74 (G≥≥3) and 0.73 (G≥4),and the HBeAg (s/co) cut-off values were 2.95 and 2.64 lg s/co,respectively.Similarly,ROC curve analysis revealed that the AUC were 0.80 (S≥3) and 0.77 S≥4),and the HBeAg cut-off values were 2.99 and 2.82 lg s/co,respectively.Conclusions The serum HBeAg titer is negatively correlated with the inflammation grades and fibrosis stages m liver tissues of CHB patients in IC phase.The level of HBeAg may be used as an adjunctive noninvasive marker to reflect the inflammation and fibrosis status in the liver.