[A prospective investigation on interferon treatment of chronic hepatitis B]

Mismatched polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism assay together with neutralization bioassay were performed in order to elucidate the influence of pre core mutation of HBV genome and neutralizing anti-INF on the therapeutic efficacy of IFN-2b. In 29 patients treated with IFN alpha-2b, HBV DNA pre core mutation were detected in 15 patients (15/29, 51.7%), HBV DNA in 7 of these 15 patients (7/15, 46.6%) turned to negative, all of whom were recurrent one year follow up. In the other 14 patients without pre core mutation, 7 patients (7/14, 50%) became serum HBV DNA negative, none of whom were recurrent. HBV DNA was undetectable in 4 of the 15 patients (4/15, 26.7%) with neutralizing antibody. In contrast, HBV DNA became undetectable in 10 of the 12 patients (10/12, 83.3%) without neutralizing antibody (P < 0.05).