BACKGROUND Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major global health burden with distinct geographic public health significance. Oman is a country with intermediate HBV carrier prevalence; however, little is known about the incidence of HBV variants in circulation. We investigated the HBV genotype distribution, the occurrence of antiviral resistance, and HBV surface antigen (HBsAg) escape muta...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the major cause of chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide, especially in the Asia-Pacific region. Several hepatitis B viral factors predictive of clinical outcomes in HBV carriers have been identified. The Risk Evaluation of Viral Load Elevation and Associated Liver Disease/Cancer-HBV (REVEAL-HBV) study from Taiwan illustr...

Organ recipients are at risk of chronic hepatitis B infection when organs harbouring the virus are transplanted. The ‘resolved’ hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections of organ donors (those HBsAg negative, anti-HBc positive, anti-HBs positive) are frequently reactivated in immunosuppressed liver transplant recipients [1]. In some cases, vaccination before transplantation does not protect the recipi...

Coexistence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody against HBsAg (anti-HBs) comprises an atypical serological profile in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In this study, in total 94 patients with coexisting HBsAg and anti-HBs and 94 age- and sex-matched patients with positive HBsAg were characterized by quantitatively measuring HBsAg and HBV DNA, sequencing l...

The aim of this study was to analyze the clinical features of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-positive and negative diffuse large B-cell lymphomas (DLBCLs) and to compare the outcomes and serum hepatitis B virus (HBV)-DNA loads of patients treated with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) regimens with rituximab (RCHOP) or without. A total of 451 DLBCL patients, ...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Little is known about whether low serum HBsAg levels result from impaired HBsAg synthesis or a reduced number of hepatocytes caused by advanced liver fibrosis. Therefore, we investigated the capacity for HBsAg synthesis in a cross-sectional cohort of treatment-naïve chronic hepatitis B patients. METHODS Chronic hepatitis B patients (n = 362) were enrolled; liver biopsies w...

A fully automated chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay (Architect HBsAg QT) was used for the detection and quantitation of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg). The assay is capable of processing up to 800 HBsAg tests per hour. The concentration of HBsAg is determined by utilizing a previously generated Architect HBsAg calibration curve. Architect HBsAg QT sensitivity was found to be aroun...

BACKGROUND The prevalence of hepatitis B virus infection in Greece has been decreasing over the last decades. However, recent epidemiological data are lacking. METHODS We studied 1,840 Army recruits from 05/2004 until 10/2005, and performed serological testing for HBsAg, anti-HBsAg, and anti-HBcAg. We also examined their association with several factors, including age, residential area, socio...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to characterize the expression and secretion of hepatitis B surface-antigen (HBsAg) in the hepatocytes of hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected patients at different phases of infection; as such, the association of intrahepatic HBsAg expression with virological markers and the histological characteristics were analyzed. MATERIAL AND METHODS 302 chronic HBV infect...

BACKGROUND In this study, we aimed to identify baseline predictors of response in chronic hepatitis B patients treated with a combination of pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN)-α2a and adefovir. METHODS We treated 92 chronic hepatitis B patients (44 hepatitis B e antigen [HBeAg]-positive and 48 HBeAg-negative) with HBV DNA > 100,000 copies/ml (> 17,182 IU/ml) with PEG-IFN and adefovir for 48 weeks...