BACKGROUND CpG islands in hepatitis B virus (HBV) genome are potential targets for methylation mediated gene silencing, and may be involved in the pathogenesis of HBV infection. To date, their characteristics in HBV quasispecies (QS) remain largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of CpG islands in HBV QS. METHODS Forty patients diagnosed as acute hepa...

Backgrounds: As one of the major public health problems, the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection would activate the immune system. The outcome of HBV infection was affect significantly by the interactions between HBV and host immune response. Interleukins play important role in anti-viral immunity. Here we investigated the role of interleukin-35 (IL-35) in chronic HBV infection patients. Methods/...

Studies on chronic viral hepatitis and mortality have often been made on selected populations or in high-endemic countries. The aim of this study was to investigate the causes of death and the mortality rates in the nationwide cohorts of people chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and/or hepatitis C virus (HCV) in Sweden, a low-endemic country. All notifications on chronic HBV infe...

OBJECTIVE To study the factors influencing mother-infant vertical transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV). METHODS A total of 635 pregnant women with chronic hepatitis B or chronic asymptomatic HBV carriers were enrolled. The rate of HBV infection was compared between the infants born from the pregnant women of different HBV-DNA load, different ways of delivery and different liver functions a...

To date, the role of invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is not fully understood. In previous reports, iNKT cells were identified by indirect methods. However, discrepancies regarding the prevalence and function of iNKT cells during HBV infection were observed. In this study, we have devised a direct, highly specific CD1d tetramer-based methodolo...

Inflammation caused by chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is associated with the development of cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma; however, the mechanisms by which HBV infection induces inflammation and inflammatory cytokine production remain largely unknown. We analyzed the gene expression patterns of lymphocytes from chronic HBV-infected patients and found that the expression of Z...

Clinical trials for chronic hepatitis B (HBV) infection in children have shown usefulness of interferon alpha 2b (IFN-alpha) in eliminating HBV replication and in improving liver histology. Although it is not the ultimate goal of the interferon treatment for chronic HBV infection, it has been suggested in adults that HBsAg clearance decreases the likelihood of development of hepatocellular carc...

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is common throughout the world. According to World Health Organization, about 300 million people around world are living with HBV markers, prevalence ranging from 0.4% 8.5%, depending on region. Untreated results in severe liver disease, including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), at least one third of patients. While vaccination new antivir...

BACKGROUND The 13C urea breath test (13C-UBT) is the gold standard for detecting Helicobacter pylori infection. H. pylori pathogenesis in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and related diseases remains obscure. We used 13C-UBT to detect H. pylori infection in patients with chronic HBV infection, HBV-related cirrhosis, HBV-related hepatic carcinoma, and other chronic hepatic diseases. METHO...

results the mean age of chb patients was 38.5± 11.9 years and 55.9% of them (231 patients) were male. there were 13 cases (3.1%) with hdv infection. there was no association between positive anti-hdv serology and factors such as age, gender, carrier state, liver enzymes, and positive hepatitis b e antigen (hbeag) serology. conclusions although hdv had a low prevalence in our area, it is importa...