At present, there are still about 250 million people with
chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV)
infection around the world, which seriously threatens
human life and
health.
Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) can develop into
liver diseases such as
liver fibrosis,
liver cirrhosis, and
hepatocellular carcinoma; however, there is still a limited number of
antiviral drugs and an extremely low
cure rate in clinical practice, and thus it is urgent to develop new
antiviral drugs. HBV has strong hepatotropism and only infects a few
primates such as
humans and
chimpanzees under natural conditions. Whether
immune response (
innate immunity and
adaptive immunity) can effectively recognize and eliminate or inhibit HBV is an important factor leading to different outcomes after
virus infection, and
cytokines play an important immunoregulatory
role in this process. This article summarizes and discusses the
research advances in some key
cytokines in CHB
infection and
treatment.