Compositional changes of PBL population in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection

In this report we have analysed the peripheral blood lymphocyte of several patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection with flow cytometry. Based on the presence and absence of the HBeAb, patients were divided into two groups. In both, all the patients were HBsAg positive with normal range of serum alanine aminotranferase (23.9 +/- 17.8). We have found that the immunophenotypic profiles of patients were different from healthy donors with significant decrease in CD(3)(+) T cells, specially CD(8)(+) T cells and a significant increase in the CD(19)(+) B cells. The differences were seen in other subset of T cells (CD(4)(+)) or NK cells (CD(56)(+)/CD(16)(+)) and HLA-DR markers were not significant. When the phenotypic profiles of both groups were compared with each other, such changes were more dominant in group II, with HBeAb positive than in group I, with HBeAb negative. Also, we have seen a correlation between the increase of CD(19)(+) B cells and the decrease of CD CD(3)(+) T cells. No such correlation was observed with other cells.