BACKGROUND Hepatitis E virus infection usually causes an acute and self-resolving hepatitis. In areas where chronic hepatitis B virus infection is prevalent, acute hepatitis E virus superinfection on chronic hepatitis B virus infection occurs sporadically. In recent years, however, chronic hepatitis E virus infection has been recognized in patients under immunosuppressant therapy. To the best o...

Acute hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is typically distinguished from chronic disease by a positive IgM anti-hepatitis B core antigen (anti-HBc) test. Patients with chronic hepatitis B remain hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) positive, often with raised serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activities, for more than six months. The presence of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and HBV-DNA correl...

Hepatic viscerotomy of paraffin-preserved old specimens, collected in the period from 1934 to 1967, were analyzed by immunohistochemical assays to detect hepatitis B, hepatitis D, dengue and yellow fever virus antigens. The material belongs to the Yellow Fever Collection, Department of Pathology, Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and the cases were diagnosed at that time according ...

BACKGROUND/AIMS Clearance of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is characterised by a strong cytotoxic T cell response. Persistence of HBV in chronic hepatitis B carriers may be related to failure of this response. The aim of this study was to determine whether HLA class I restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) responses persist in anti-hepatitis B e (HBe) positive / HBV DNA negative individuals, and to ...

The occurrence of e antigen in 44 patients with acute hepatitis B was studied in order to determine if e was related to the outcome of the illness. In 13.6% of cases e was detected, and in none of these did the carrier state develop. The HBsAg carrier state developed in 4.6% of the patients and in none of these was e antigen detected. Anti-e was detected in only three cases. Only in the very ea...

AIM To identify the factors associated with virologic breakthrough and to select a subgroup of patients who respond well to lamivudine without developing virologic breakthrough (VBT). METHODS Of 79 patients who had received lamivudine therapy for 9-57 mo, 34 were HBeAg-positive and 45 were HBeAg-negative, 24 developed virologic breakthrough and 55 did not. Clinical and virologic factors were ...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Virological breakthrough (VBT) could be a manifestation of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) in patients treated with long-term nucleot(s)ide analogues. We aimed to determine the association of on-treatment serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA with VBT in HBeAg-positive CHB patients receiving entecavir (ETV) treatment. METHODS A retrospective cohort study, including 162 consecutive pat...

BACKGROUND Patients with HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B (CHB) has a significantly different prognosis than inactive carriers; there is however, no reliable strategy for accurately differentiating these two disease conditions. OBJECTIVES To determine a strategy for discriminating patients with HBeAg-negative CHB from inactive carriers. MATERIALS AND METHODS Consecutive inactive carriers ...

The aim of this study was to estimate distant results after discontinuation of long term lamivudine treatment in children with chronic hepatitis B. Furthermore, the emergence of HBV polymerase gene variants in YMDD motif during therapy was examined. Additionally, the most commonly occurring type of mutation in the polymerase YMDD region were investigated. The study involved 27 HBeAg positive ch...

The serology of chronic hepatitis B infection has been established through the use of commercial immunoassays to measure the structural antigens of the hepatitis B virus and their respective antibodies in serum. However, the commercial assays have not been designed to detect serum antibodies in the presence of an excess of circulating antigens. A series of serum samples from 200 HBeAg-positive,...