Studies on the asymptomatic HBsAg carrier

Part 1: Clinicopathological studies with special reference to e status

Abstract

This paper reported the clinicopathological studies on 81 symptom-free HBsAg carriers, detected, by chance, with special reference to e status. HBsAg in their sera persisted at least more than 3 months. Out of 81 cases, 42 showed normal liver function tests (normal group) and 39 showed abnormal liver function tests (abnormal group). e antigen was detected in higher prevalence in abnormal group (21/39, 53.8%) than in normal group (13/42, 30.9%). By contrast, anti-e was more frequently detected in normal group (21/42, 50%) than in abnormal group (12/39, 30.8%). Abnormalities of liver function tests in abnormal group were more remarkable in e antigen positive cases than anti-e positive cases. As regards histological aspects, 2 cases with anti-e in normal group showed chronic persistent hepatitis and the remaining 40 cases in this group revealed only minimal changes or nonspecific reactive hepatitis. In abnormal group, e antigen positive cases had propensity to reveal liver diseases such as acute hepatitis (4 cases), chronic persistent hepatitis (3 cases) and chronic active hepatitis (2 cases). By contrast, even in cases with abnormal liver function tests, most of anti-e positive cases showed only minimal changes or nonspecific reactive hepatitis except for 1 case with liver cirrhosis.
All 8 cases with abundant ground glass appearing hepatocytes were anti-e positive cases.