Low Serum Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Level Predicts Compensated Cirrhosis Caused by Chronic Hepatitis B in HBeAg Positive Patients in East China

Serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) levels are associated with fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection. The aim of our study was to evaluate serum HBsAg level as a biomarker for compensated cirrhosis in hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) positive CHB patients. Twohundred and one HBeAgpositive Chinese CHB patients with or without cirrhosis were enrolled in this retrospective study. Cirrhosis was diagnosed based on liver biopsy. Furthermore, patients with decompensated cirrhosis were excluded. A statistical analysis was performed regarding the association between serum HBsAg level and compensated cirrhosis. Patients with compensated cirrhosis had a significantly lower mean serum HBsAg level compared to those without cirrhosis (3.27 Log10 IU/mL VS 4.17 Log10 IU/mL, P amp;lt; 0.001). Furthermore, examining the correlation with compensated cirrhosis revealed that lower level of serum HBsAg was a significant factor in multivariate analysis. The area under the receiver operating characteristics curve of serum HBsAg was 0.856 for compensated cirrhosis. A positive predictive value of 66.2% and negative predictive value of 90.7% were obtained with a cutoff value of amp;lt; 3.60 Log10 IU/mL (4000 IU/mL) of serum HBsAg. Moreover, the rate of compensated cirrhosis increased to 75.0% after combining with APRI amp;gt; 2. In HBeAg positive CHB patients, low serum HBsAg level is a useful predictor of compensated cirrhosis.