Studies on HBeAg/anti-HBe in HBsAg positive liver diseases and asymptomatic HBsAg carriers

Part 1 Prevalence of HBeAg/anti-HBe by passive hemagglutination method

Abstract

In order to evaluate the HBeAg/anti-HBe system in HBV infection, we surveyed HBeAg/anti-HBe in sera of patients with HBsAg positive chronic liver diseases (CLD) and asymptomatic HBsAg carriers (AsC) by passive hemagglutination method (HA method) and compared the results with that by immunodiffusion method (ID method).
Out of 166 HBsAg positive sera from patients with CLD, HBeAg was detected in 43 cases (25.6%) by HA method, as compared to 15 cases (9.0%) by ID method. In contrast with the wide difference of the detection rate of HBeAg in CLD between two methods, in 113 of AsC the positive rate increased only slightly as to 26.5% by HA method from 20.4% by ID method. This suggests that the titer of HBeAg in CLD is lower than in AsC. The log2 geometric mean titer of HBeAg in AsC was 6.9±1.4, significantly higher than the valeu of HBeAg in group of persistent hepatitis and chronic hepatitis (5.7±1.7) and group of cirrhosis and hepatoma (4.6±0.9). HBsAg titer was higher in cases with positive HBeAg than in cases positive for anti-HBe.
There was a statistically significant correlation between HBsAg titer and HBeAg titer in AsC group, but in liver diseases the correlation was not clear. Thus the findings in HBeAg/anti-HBe system in HBV infection by HA method confirmed some of the results by ID method and furthermore added some new informations on it.