Hepatitis-B as a prognostic discriminant in patients with primary liver cancer

The prognostic significance of positive serologic determination of hepatitis-B was investigated in 137 patients with primary liver cancer seen over a 6-year period in Pretoria. The median survival time of the 137 patients was 93 days. Patients who were anicteric had a longer survival. Patients who showed positive results for hepatitis-B surface antigen (HBsAg) had a median survival time of 135 days, (39 patients) whereas patients who were HBsAg-negative had a median survival time of 96 days (66 patients). In 57 patients, one or more of the serologic determinations, HBsAg, HBeAg, anti-HBs, anti-HBe, and/or anti-HBc, were positive. Their median survival was 118 days. When HBsAg positivity (or negativity) is corrected for bilirubin, the median survival time remains a function of the bilirubin.