Detection of serum hepatitis B virus using a nested polymerase chain reaction assay

We described a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay to detect serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in patients. We compared the sensitivity of the PCR assay to that of slot-blot hybridization for detecting HBV DNA in serum and found that analysis by PCR provides a > 10(4) fold increase over the slot-blot assay. Most of the HBe Ag-positive patients were positive in PCR, and most of those being anti-HBe-positive were negative with this PCR assay.