Absence of Correlation between IL-28B Gene Polymorphisms and the Clinical Presentation of Chronic Hepatitis B in an Amazon Brazilian Population

OBJECTIVE The present study investigated the prevalence of the IL-28B polymorphisms rs12979860 and rs8099917 in chronic hepatitis B patients from a case study in Eastern Amazonia. METHODS In total, 65 chronically infected HBV patients and 97 healthy subjects who were anti-HBc and anti-HBs positive (control group) were evaluated between May 2011 and December 2012. The groups of patients were designated as inactive carriers, chronic hepatitis without cirrhosis, and chronic hepatitis with cirrhosis based on clinical, pathological, biochemical, hematological, and virological variables. The patients were genotyped using quantitative real-time PCR. RESULTS The frequencies of the rs12979860 polymorphism were similar between the infected group (32.3% CC, 41.5% CT, and 26.2 TT) and the control population (35% CC, 47.4% CT, and 17.6% TT), and the frequencies of the rs8099917 polymorphism (7.7% GG, 35.4% GT, and 56.9% TT versus 7.2% GG, 35.1% GT, and 57.7% TT) were also similar in both groups. The associations between the rs12979860 and rs8099917 polymorphisms and the clinical manifestations were not statistically significant. CONCLUSION In conclusion, these polymorphisms had a similar distribution between infected and control groups, indicating that they were not associated with susceptibility and the clinical evolution of hepatitis B in the examined population.