Abstract
In order to clarify the clinical significance of circulating immune complexes (CIC), the authors investigated the incidence of CIC and the relationship between the presence of CIC and disease activity in patients with liver diseases using Raji cell assay for detection of CIC. In addition, CIC containing HBsAg (HBsAg-CIC) and HBeAg (HBeAg-CIC) in sera of patients with HBV infection have been detected using PEG-trypsinisation assay which is regarded as antigen-specific method.
CIC were detected in sera from 5 of 17 (29.4%) patients with acute type A hepatitis, 5 of 12 (41.7%) with acute type B hepatitis, 3 of 9 (33.3%) with non A, non B hepatitis, 7 of 21 (33.3%) with chronic active hepatitis, 1 of 5 (20.0%) with chronic inactive hepatitis, 9 of 32 (28.1%) with liver cirrhosis, 4 of 12 (33.3%) with hepatocellular carcinoma, 3 of 10 (30.0%) with alcoholic liver injury, 12 of 20 (60.0%) with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) and 3 of 28 (10.7%) asymptomatic HBsAg carriers. The incidence of CIC was highest in sera of patients with PBC as compared with the remaining liver diseases. Detection and quantitation for CIC using Raji cell assay and PEG-trypsinisation assay were simultaneously carried out in serial sera of patients with HBV infection and the incidence of CIC by these two methods was almost the same. HBeAg-CIC were transiently detected in sera of two patients with type B acute and chronic active hepatitis. Moreover, HBsAg-CIC were more frequently detectable in HBeAg-positive sera than in HBeAg-negative sera, thus suggesting the presence of correlation between HBsAg-CIC and disease activity.
