HBeAg quantification in predicting efficacy of pegylated interferon α therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis B / 中华临床感染病杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate HBeAg quantification in predicting the efficacy of pegylated interferon (PegIFN) α treatment for patients with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB).Methods A total of 216 HBeAg-positive CHB patients admitted in Ningbo No.2 Hospital during March 2009 and December 2011 were enrolled in the study.All patients were given subcutaneous injection of PegIFNα-2a or PegIFNα-2b weekly for 48 weeks and followed up for 24 weeks after discontinuation.Patients were divided into HBeAg seroconversion group and non-seroconversion group at the end of the follow-up.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate HBeAg levels at baseline and 12,24 weeks of treatment in predicting HBeAg seroconversion.Results HBeAg seroconversion was observed in 31.48％ (68/216) patients at the end of follow-up,and there was no significant difference in seroconversion rate between patients treated with PegIFNα-2a and those with PegIFNα-2b (32.00％ vs.29.27％,P ＞ 0.05).There was significant difference in baseline HBeAg levels between patients with HBeAg seroconversion and those without HBeAg seroconversion (Z =-3.834,P ＜ 0.05).HBeAg seroconversion patients had a tendency of rapidly decreasing HBeAg level,but there was no significant difference in decreasing rate between seroconversion and non-seroconversion patients (F =3.321,P ＞ 0.05).ROC curves showed that HBeAg level at 24-week was the best indicator for predicting HBeAg seroconversion with area under curve of 0.861.Conclusion Serum HBeAg level at 24-week of treatment may be used to predict the HBeAg seroconversion in HBeAg-positive CHB patients treated with PegIFNα.