Immunosuppressive therapy and virus-cores in HBAg-positive chronic hepatitis

Three liver biopsies were carried out in a case of chronic active hepatitis with persistent HB-antigenemia. Virus-cores could not be detected in the liver cell nuclei by electron microscopy before immunosuppressive therapy. Intranuclear, ring-shaped virus-cores of 20-25 nm diameter appeared in almost every hepatocyte examined during immunosuppression.