Abstract
The course and prognosis of 64 asymptomatic HBsAg carriers were studied. All of them confirmed histologically to have normal or minimal changes on initial biopsy with informed consents. They were consisted of 26 HBeAg positive cases and 38 anti-HBe positive cases. The average follow-up period was 30.4 months in HBeAg positive cases and 27.8 months in anti-HBe positive cases. Seventeen of 26 HBeAg positive cases showed the abnormal transaminase during the follow-up period. The peak of their transaminase level were over 100 units in 13 of them. The liver biopsy was performed sequently twice to fourth times in 11 of those 13 cases. Their final histologic findings were liver cirrhosis in 2, chronic active hepatitis in 5, chronic inactive hepatitis in 2 and acute viral hepatitis in 2 cases. On the other hand, in 38 anti-HBe positive cases, 10 showed abnormal transaminase, but the peaks were below 100 units in all cases. Four cases of them were biopsied twice. Their histologic findings revealed normal or minimal changes as initial biopsies.
All 64 cases had HBsAg persistently. Five cases showed seroconversion from HBeAg to anti-HBe. Those 5 cases showed elevation of transaminase temporaly before seroconversion.
These data suggest that the presence of HBeAg is closely to the occurence of hepatitis in asymptomatic HBsAg carriers. As the other factors cocerned with the prognosis of them, sex, age and family clustering of liver disease were considered.
