Evaluation of liver tissue by polymerase chain reaction for hepatitis B virus in patients with negative viremia

Table 1 Characteristics of patients uncategorized in Poynard (2000) classification

	HbsAg	HbsAb	HbeAg	HbeAb	HBcAb IgG	HBcAb IgM	DNA serum	DNA liver	Symptom	ALT	HAI/fibrosis	No. of patients
Uncategorized	+	+/–	–/+	+/–	+	–	–	+	+/–	+	+	10

Table 2 Hepatic biochemical tests in group I vs group II patients

	Group I (n = 10)	Group II (n = 23)	P values
Serum bilirubin (mg/dL)	1.36±1.31	1.44±2.1	0.9
AST (IU/L)	63.9±24.1	82.0±51.3	0.3
ALT (IU/L)	62.6±27.4	0.2
Serum albumin (g/dL)	3.9±0.50	4.0±0.57	0.4
INR	1.25±0.22	1.23±0.14	0.7

Table 3 Hepatic histopathologic parameters in group I vs group II patients

		Group I (n = 10)	Group II (n = 23)	P values
Grading	0–9	8	20	0.4
	10–18	2	3
Staging	0–2	9	19	0.9
	3–6	1	4

Table 4 HBV seromarker pattern according to HBV DNA testing

Marker pattern	n	HBV DNA status
		+ve serum	–ve serum	+ve serum	–ve serum
		+ve liver	–ve liver	–ve liver	+ve liver
cAb+eAg–eAb+	18	7	1	3	7
cAb+eAg+eAb–	7	5	–	1	1
cAb–eAg–/+eAb–/+	5	2	2	1	–
cAb+eAg–eAb–	2	1	–	–	1
cAb+eAg+eAb+	1	–	–	–	1
Total	33	15	3	5	10

cAb: hepatitis B core antibody; eAg: hepatitis B envelope (e) antigen; eAb: hepatitis B antibody against envelope (e) antigen.