[HBsAg/PRE-S2 expression of viral replication and hepatic inflammation in chronic hepatitis B virus infection]

A close relationship (r = 0.186, P less than 0.025) was found between the serologic level of HBsAg/pre-S2, an envelope protein of hepatitis B virus, and the level of viral replication expressed by HBeAg. The rate of co-appearance and co-absence of both pre-S2 and HBeAg was 75.0%. Among HBeAg-positive cases, the prevalence of pre-S2 and its serologic level were significantly higher during exacerbation than resolution of chronic active hepatitis (73.3 vs 33.3%, 111.4 vs 1.4 ng/ml), and also higher than those among HBeAg-negative cases. Those the prevalence and the level were also higher in chronic active hepatitis than in chronic asymptomatic carriers (26.9 vs 11.5%, 2.95 vs 0.49 ng/ml). Pre-S2 prevalence in the group with highest scoring of histological activity was significantly higher than that in the groups with lower scoring (88.9 vs 40.0 and 36.4%) and the serologic level of pre-S2 also increased along with the scoring. Those data suggest that pre-S2 was associated with hepatic inflammatory activity as well.