Detection of peripheral blood T lymphocyte subpopulations among patients positive for both hepatitis B virus surface antigen and surface antibody / 中国热带医学

ABSTRACT

@#Abstract Objective　To investigate the frequency of peripheral blood T cells among patients positive for both hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg) and surface antibody (HBsAb). Methods　 Thirty six patients with co-existence of HBsAg and HBsAb diagnosed were enrolled as the experimental group, who were admitted by Shanghai tenth people's hospital and Wuxi 9th people's hospital from 2014 to 2020. while 40 patients tested positive for HBsAg and negative for HBsAb served as controls, who were admitted by Wuxi 9th people's hospital. Flow cytometry was used to detect and compare the proportions of peripheral blood CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells between the experimental and control groups. In addition, the associations of serum HBsAb level with peripheral blood T cell proportions, serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels were examined among chronic hepatitis B patients with co-existence of HBsAg and HBsAb using Pearson correlation analysis. Results　The median age, gender distribution, mean ALT and AST concentrations, proportion of HBV DNA viral load>103 copies/mL, seroprevalence of HBV E antigen (HBeAg), seroprevalence of HBV E antibody (HBeAb), seroprevalence of HBV core antibody (HBcAb) were comparable between the experimental and control groups, and there were no significant difference in them (P>0.05). There were no significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of CD3+ T cell proportion [(71.83±1.50)% vs (72.75±1.47)%; t=0.66, P>0.05], CD4+ T cell proportion [(36.81±1.53)% vs (39.88±1.57)%; t=1.43, P>0.05] and CD8+ T cell proportion [(33.17±2.04)% vs (32.40±1.75)%; t=0.77, P>0.05]. Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the serum HBsAb level did not significantly correlate with peripheral blood CD3+ (r=0.026, P=0.65), CD4+ (r=‒0.08, P=0.16) and CD8+ T cell proportions (r=0.09, P=0.24), CD4+/CD8+ T proportion (r=‒0.005, P=0.35), serum ALT (r=0.04, P=0.56) and AST levels (r=0.002, P=0.69) among chronic hepatitis B patients with co-existence of HBsAg and HBsAb. Conclusions　There are no significant differences between HBsAg+/HBsAb+ and HBsAg+/HBsAb- CHB patients in terms of peripheral blood CD3+, CD4+ and CD8+ T cell proportions.