The correlations between HBV quantity in the liver tissue and the severity of liver tissue injury in chronic hepatitis B and hepatic cirrhosis

Objective To understand the correlations between HBV quantity in the liver tissue and severity of hepatic injury in chronic hepatitis B and hepatic cirrhosis.Methods This study included 46 CHB patients and 17 hepatic cirrhosis patients and they were divided into two groups according to HBeAg positive and HBeAg negative.Specimens of all the patients were obtained by liver biopsy or surgery and histology examinations were performed.Intrahepatic HBV DNA and serum HBV DNA quantity were detected by Realtime-PCR.Results (1) Serum HBV DNA quantity of liver cirrhosis group was lower than that of HBeAg (+) CHB group (P<0.01) , but higher than that of HBeAg (-) CHB group (P<0.001) .Intrahepatic HBV DNA quantity of liver cirrhosis group was lower than that of HBeAg (+) and HBeAg (-) CHB groups (P<0.001 and P<0.01 respectively) .Intrahepatic HBV DNA quantity was higher than that of serum HBV DNA in both CHB groups (P<0.05 and P<0.01 respectively) , while intrahepatic HBV DNA quantity was lower than that of the serum HBV DNA in the liver cirrhosis group (P<0.001) . (2) Serum HBV DNA quantity was positively related to hepatic inflammation degree and fibrosis stage (P<0.05) , while intrahepatic HBV DNA quantity was negatively related to hepatic inflammation grade and fibrosis stage (P<0.05) .Conclusion Comparing with serum HBV DNA, intrahepatic HBV DNA quantity can reflect much accurately on HBV amplification in the liver, severity of tissue injury and hepatology progression.