Hepatitis B virus DNA in sera of virus carriers positive exclusively for antibodies to the hepatitis B core antigen

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The prevalence of serum HBV DNA in individuals positive for anti‐HBc alone was determined by the polymerase chain reaction in two groups with endemic HBV infection from Canton (group A) and Hainan (group B), provinces of China. Twenty‐one out of 294 individuals in group A (7.2%) and 193 out of 1995 in group B (9.7%) were positive for anti‐HBc but negative for other markers of ongoing or past HBV infection. (HBsAg and anti‐HBs). HBV DNA was detected in 6/21 sera in group A (28.6%) and 68/193 in group B (35.2%) in their initial serum specimen. One of the six HBV‐DNA‐positive individuals in group A became negative after 6 months and four of the 58 positive in group B became negative at 4 years of follow‐up. All of the individuals remained positive for anti‐HBc and negative for anti‐HBs, but one of them became positive for HBsAg on follow‐up. None of the anti‐HBc‐ and HBV‐DNA‐positive subjects had symptoms of liver diseases. They were, therefore, defined as chronic asymptomatic HBV carriers with undetectable HBsAg. This type of carrier should be added to the typical HBsAg‐positive carrier, who constitutes about 10–15% of the general Chinese population, to give a more complete estimate of asymptomatic HBV carriers in China.