More than 30 years after the discovery of human hepatitis B virus (HBV) this virus remains to be one of the major global health problems. In infected adolescents or adults, 5%-10% will lead to a chronic carrier state, whereas in infected neonates up to 90% develop chronicity. It is estimated that about 370 million people are chronic carriers of HBV worldwide. In many regions of the world, chron...

Introduction The discovery of Australia antigen (hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)) by Blumberg in 1965,' its association with serum hepatitis described by Prince in 19682 and the visualisation of the 42 nm infectious hepatitis B virus (HBV) particle by electron microscopy in 19703 led to research into the aetiology, treatment and prevention of serum hepatitis. Further serological markers of ...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects approximately 240 million individuals worldwide. Recent advances in the virology, immunopathogenesis, and diagnosis of HBV infection are summarized in this review article. The identification of a hepatocyte-specific cellular receptor for HBV, the sodium taurocholate co-transporting polypeptide (NTCP), made it possible to develop reliable cell culture systems and ...

Serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) markers are the most important data for epidemiological screening and clinical diagnosis of HBV infection, especially in endemic areas. We compared the results of the Roche Modular Analytics E170 assay, the Abbott Architect i2000 assay, and an immunoradiometric assay (IRMA) for HBV surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-HBV surface antigen (anti-HBs), HBV e antigen (HBeAg),...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infects approximately 240 million individuals worldwide. Recent advances in the virology, immunopathogenesis, and diagnosis of HBV infection are summarized in this review article. The identification of a hepatocyte-specific cellular receptor for HBV, the sodium taurocholate co-transporting polypeptide (NTCP), made it possible to develop reliable cell culture systems and ...

Despite ACIP recommendation and cost-effectiveness established in those 19-59 y old diabetes patients the uptake of Hepatitis B vaccine in diabetes patients is low. There is need to highlight the impact of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in diabetes patients in terms of healthcare utilization and costs to recognize the burden of HBV in this population. This retrospective claims analysis inclu...

BACKGROUND The coinfections HIV/HCV/HBV are an important health issue in penitentiary communities. The aim of the study was to examine HIV, HBV and HCV coinfections determinants amongst prisoners in the jails of Southern Lazio (Central Italy), in the period 1995-2000. METHODS Diagnosis of seropositivities for HIV, HBV and HCV was made using ELISA method. A multiple logistic regression analysi...

BACKGROUND Data mining techniques such as support vector machines (SVMs) have been successfully used to predict outcomes for complex problems, including for human health. Much health data is imbalanced, with many more controls than positive cases. METHODS The impact of three balancing methods and one feature selection method is explored, to assess the ability of SVMs to classify imbalanced di...

BACKGROUND Little is known about viral hepatitis testing and infection prevalence among persons in private healthcare organizations (HCOs) in the United States. METHODS To determine the frequency of and characteristics associated with viral hepatitis testing and infection prevalence among adults with access to care, we conducted an observational cohort study among 1.25 million adults from 4 U...

This study aimed to investigate the virological status in liver (both tumor and adjacent non-tumor tissue), the clinical features and the contribution of occult HBV infection (OBI) to postoperative prognosis in HBeAg-negative(-) hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients in China. Using quantitative TaqMan fluorescent real-time PCR assays, HBV covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) and total DNA ...