Abstract

This study was conducted in Trabzon Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Infectious Diseases.

Spontaneous HBsAg seroclearance is infrequent in adult HBV infection. In the present study, in treatment naïve and nucleos(t)ide analogue-treated chronic hepatitis B patients the incidence of loss of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) were investigated. The data of 1380 treatment naïve chronic hepatitis B patients and 1233 nucleos(t)ide analogue-treated chronic hepatitis B patients were evaluated between 2008-2018, retrospectively. Median age was 44.6 (±13,5) in treatment naïve patients and 40.7±13.9 in treated chronic hepatitis B patients (P= 0.368). Tedavi naiv hastaların %46’sı, tedavi alan hastaların %42.9’ü kadındı (P=0.119). 

Spontaneous loss of HBsAg occurred only in four patients (0.3%) in treatment naïve patients. In the 3 patients of these patients occurred anti-HBs seroconversion, and one patients was seronegative for HBsAg and anti-HBs.  All of the patients with HBsAg seroclearance were HBeAg negative at the time of initial diagnosis. HBeAg seroconversion was observed in 10 treatment naive patients. HBeAg was positive in the 266 of 1233 patients whom receiving nuc treatment. The mean duration of treatment was 6.3 ± 4.8 (2-10 years). While HBsAg loss was the seven patients, antiHBs were positive in the five cases. HBeAg seroconversion was seen in the 18 patients. While HBeAg was negative in patients with HBsAg loss, HBeAg seroconversion and HBsAg seroconversion developed in the one patient. HBsAg loss was no different between the two groups (P = 0.428). Our results show that spontaneous HBsAg loss is rarely in our region. The current drugs for HBV infection it does not provide HBsAg loss. As a result it is need the development of new therapeutic drugs for HBV infection elimination.