A Preliminary Study HBsAg Quantitative And Toll-like Receptor α-interferon Treatment Of Chronic Hepatitis B Predict Efficacy

Objective：To explore the predictive role of serum quantitativeHBsAg in predicting treatment response towards IFNα-1b in hepatitisB e antigen-positive chronic hepatitis B patients.Methods：Seventy treatment-naive patients with CHB weretreated at The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing MedicalUniversity from January2008to July2012. Treatment consisted ofIFNα-1b at a dose of5MU, administered three times/week by asubcutaneous injection for48weeks. Quantification of HBsAg wascarried out retrospectively on frozen sera from patients at baseline,weeks12,24,36, and at the end of treatment (48weeks), and thequantitative HBV DNA and liver function were assessed. Patients weredesignated as nonresponders (NRs) or responders (Rs) according to thefollow-up outcomes，then the use of serum hepatitis B surface antigenquantification to predict responses to IFNα-1b in HBeAg-positive CHB patients was investigated. Continuous variables were expressed asmean±SD. The accuracy of serum HBsAg to predict response wasassessed using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve.P-value of less than0.05was considered statistically significant.Results：Fourteen patients were Rs and56were NRs towardsIFNα-1b treatment. At the end of treatment, HBV DNA and HBsAglevels in all patients were lower than that of baseline. From week12to48, HBsAg was correlated positively with serum HBV DNA (r=0.242,0.576,0.640,0.569; P<0.05). At weeks24,36, and48, HBsAg levelsof Rs were lower than those of NRs (P<0.05). However, at weeks36and48, HBV DNA levels of Rs were lower than those of NRs (P<0.05).The cutoff of6109.01IU/ml in serum HBsAg at week24had a positivepredictive value of37.5%and a negative predictive value of94.7%,and with an area under the ROC curve of0.816.Conclusions：On-treatment serum hepatitis B surface antigen canpredict responses to peginterferon therapy in chronic hepatitis B. Aim：The aim of this study was to explore the relationship of thetoll-like receptor (TLR) expression with the outcome of antiviraltherapy in hepatitis B viral infection.Methods： Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) wereobtained from28CHB patients before treatment with IFNα-1b. Asemiquantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) was used to compare the relative abundance of TLR1~10transcripts.Results： mRNA levels of TLR2,3,5and6were significantlyhigher in CHB subjects compared with normal controls. When patientswere classified into non-responders and early virological respondersaccording to the virological outcome of the treatment, there was a cleardifference in baseline mRNA expression of TLR3.Conclusions： TLRs mRNA levels are differentially expressed in baseline PBMC of chronic HBV-infected subjects compared withnormal controls，TLR3mRNA levels are differentially expressed inbaseline PBMC of chronic HBV-infected subjects with or withoutresponsiveness to antiviral therapy.