Numerical diagnoses of superinfection in chronic hepatitis B viral dynamics

Fluctuation profile has been observed in chronic hepatitis B patients who are untreated or interrupt therapy. A mathematical model and its parameters could be used to diagnose the assumption of superinfection of hepatocytes and to understand the causes for the spontaneous fluctuation pattern of HBV DNA loads in chronically infected patients.

We propose a new conceptual model in terms of chemical kinetics, which is based on the assumption that hepatocytes can be superinfected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Minimizing the sum of squares of the deviations, we fitted the model to the HBV DNA trajectories from clinical data and obtained the model parameters.

The model with the fitted parameters can capture the tendency of HBV DNA trajectories. The mean value of the fitted number of virions that enter a single hepatocyte at the beginning stage of an invasion is 2.10 ± 0.18. The dynamics patterns may correlate with the clinical phenotypes of patients and the value of clinical parameters, such as α-fetoprotein, hepatitis B e-antigen, hepatitis B e-antibody, total bilirubin and alanine transaminase.

The superinfection scenario is possible in HBV infection and it may induce HBV DNA fluctuation in the host.