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Epidemiological characteristics of the carriers with coexistence of HB sAg and anti‐ HB s based on a community cohort study
Author(s) -
Pu Z.,
Li D.,
Wang A.,
Su H.,
Shao Z.,
Zhang J.,
Ji Z.,
Gao J.,
Choi B. C. K.,
Yan Y.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of viral hepatitis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.329
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1365-2893
pISSN - 1352-0504
DOI - 10.1111/jvh.12492
Subject(s) - serology , hbsag , epidemiology , medicine , cohort , virology , hepatitis b virus , immunology , virus , antibody
Summary The coexistence of HB sAg and anti‐ HB s is an atypical serological pattern in HBV infection. There is no epidemiological characteristics of this serological pattern in the community and there is controversy over the molecular mechanisms underlying this pattern. We investigated the epidemiological characteristics of the carriers with HB sAg and anti‐ HB s in a longitudinal community cohort study. The prevalence of this atypical serological pattern was 2.93% (122/4169) in HB sAg‐positive populations. The prevalence progressively increased with age from 40 to 70 years old. The rate of HB eAg positive and detectable HBV DNA were both significantly higher in carriers with this pattern than in carriers who were HB sAg positive but anti‐ HB s negative (26/122 verse 598/4047, P = 0.046; 86/122 verse 275/529, P < 0.001). After 1 year of follow‐up, 85.19% of the carriers still had coexistence HB sAg and anti‐ HB s, 14.81% of the carriers lost their anti‐ HB s. Viral sequencing showed that carriers with coexistence of HB sAg and anti‐ HB s had higher numbers of residue changes within the S gene than carriers who were HB sAg positive but anti‐ HB s negative (2.42 verse 1.33 changes per 100 residues, P < 0.05). Hence, the coexistence of HB sAg and anti‐ HB s is a unique serological pattern which may be associated with an increased risk of adverse clinical outcome and may be related to HB sAg immune variants which have genotypic heterogeneity.