Original article—liver, pancreas, and biliary tractClinical Factors Associated With Liver Stiffness in Hepatitis B e Antigen–Positive Chronic Hepatitis B Patients
Section snippets
Patients and Clinical Evaluation
From July 2006 to March 2008, we conducted a territory-wide screening program from all clinics and hospitals for treatment-naive CHB patients in Hong Kong. In this study, we included CHB patients aged 18 years or older with positive hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and HBeAg, and negative antibody against HBeAg. We excluded patients who received previous antiviral or interferon treatment. We also excluded patients who were current chronic drinkers (with regular consumption of at least 40 g
Clinical Characteristics
A total of 487 HBeAg-positive CHB patients underwent LSM within the study period. After excluding 11 patients who failed transient elastography because of obesity, 6 patients with unreliable LSM (success rate, <60%), and 17 patients with ALT level greater than 5 × ULN, 453 (93%) patients were included in the analysis (Table 1). The median success rate of LSM was 100% (interquartile range, 81%–100%).
Eighty patients had both transient elastography and liver biopsies; 74 (93%) patients fulfilled
Discussion
In the past, the true prevalence of different severities of liver fibrosis and the immune-tolerance phase was very difficult to study because the indication for liver biopsy in HBeAg-positive patients with normal liver biochemistry is weak. With the availability of transient elastography together with optimal cut-off levels after considering the ALT level, different severities of liver fibrosis could be defined with high specificity.22 In this study, we showed that the prevalence of the
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The authors disclose no conflicts.