Case Report
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Feb 16, 2021; 9(5): 1196-1203
Published online Feb 16, 2021. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v9.i5.1196
Negative conversion of autoantibody profile in chronic hepatitis B: A case report
Xun Zhang, Qin-Xiu Xie, Dong-Mei Zhao
Xun Zhang, Department of Infectious Disease, The Fourth Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230012, Anhui Province, China
Qin-Xiu Xie, Dong-Mei Zhao, Department of Infectious Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China
Author contributions: Zhang X collected primary data, searched the literature and drafted the manuscript; Xie QX performed percutaneous liver puncture and organized pathological images; Zhao DM contributed to reviewing the manuscript, data analysis and preparation of tables; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they do not have any commercial or associative interest that represents a conflict of interest in connection with the work submitted.
CARE Checklist (2016) statement: The authors have read the CARE Checklist (2016), and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the CARE Checklist (2016).
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Dong-Mei Zhao, PhD, Attending Doctor, Doctor, Department of Infectious Disease, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, No. 218 Jixi Road, Hefei 230022, Anhui Province, China. zdm5460@163.com
Received: October 27, 2020
Peer-review started: October 27, 2020
First decision: November 26, 2020
Revised: December 9, 2020
Accepted: December 22, 2020
Article in press: December 22, 2020
Published online: February 16, 2021
Processing time: 94 Days and 18.3 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This case involved dynamic changes in autoantibodies in the pathogenesis of hepatitis B. The patient showed positive hepatitis B surface antigen, which can cause an autoimmune phenomenon during the clearance of hepatitis B virus (HBV). Liver pathology was performed to differentiate from autoimmune hepatitis. It is possible that the virus has a role in inducing immune responses in HBV infection. This is closely related to hepatocyte injury caused by HBV infection, which is mainly mediated by immunity. Autoantibodies can appear during viral hepatitis, and the combination of liver pathology and dynamic monitoring is required.