These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: [Differential liver histopathological features of chronic HBV infection patients with normal and mildly elevated serum ALT].
    Author: Ying RS, Yang Z, Chen YY, Yang KL, Xiao YH, Wu LJ, Fan HM.
    Journal: Zhonghua Gan Zang Bing Za Zhi; 2012 Aug; 20(8):585-8. PubMed ID: 23207151.
    Abstract:
    To study the liver histopathological features that are distinctive between chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection patients who have normal serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT)/asparatate aminotransferase (AST) and those with mildly elevated serum ALT/AST. One-hundred-and-thrity-four chronic HBV infection patients with normal serum ALT/AST and 165 chronic HBV infection patients with mildly elevated serum ALT/AST were included in the study. Liver biopsies were performed and used to assess the histological changes by hematoxylin-eosin and reticular fiber staining; mild to severe scoring for inflammation was made as grade G0-G4 and for fibrosis stage as S0-S4. HBV DNA levels were detected by fluorescent quantitative PCR. HBV serological markers were examined by chemiluminescence. The mildly elevated serum ALT/AST group had more male patients than the normal serum ALT/AST group. In the normal serum ALT/AST group, 50.0% (67/134) of the patients had moderate histological changes and only 3.0% (4/134) had severe changes (G3-4 and/or S3-4). In the mildly elevated ALT/AST group, 65.7% (174/265) of patients had moderate histological changes and 16.2% (43/265) had severe changes (G3-4 and/or S3-4). Hepatic inflammation and fibrosis were significantly more severe in the mildly elevated serum ALT/AST group than in the normal ALT/AST group (x2 = 26.386, P less than 0.01; x2 = 15.299, P less than 0.01). In the normal ALT/AST group, the severity of inflammation and fibrosis were positively correlated with age (rs = 0.620, P less than 0.01; rs = 0.347, P less than 0.01). In the mildly elevated ALT/AST group, the severity of inflammation and fibrosis were negatively correlated with age (rs = -0.807, P less than 0.01; rs = -0.557, P less than 0.01). In both groups, the severity of inflammation and fibrosis were negatively correlated with HBV DNA levels (rs = -0.215, P less than 0.01, rs = -0.527, P less than 0.01, rs = -0.951, P less than 0.01; rs = -0.715, P less than 0.01) and were not positively correlated with HBeAg. The majority of the chronic HBV infection patients with normal serum ALT/AST and those with mildly elevated serum ALT/AST had moderate liver pathological changes. All patients with low HBV DNA levels were closely followed-up, regardless of HBeAg-positive status.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]