The role of the hepatitis B virus infection in patients with chronic hepatitis in argentina

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Abstract
Over a seven‐year period, we monitored 221 patients with chronic hepatitis from two medical centers. By using the counterelectrophoresis (CEP) test to detect the presence of HBsAg and anti‐HBc, or both, we established that 87.7% of them had hepatitis B infection. Serum specimens originally found negative for HBsAg by CEP were further tested by reversed passive hemagglutination (RPH), and those originally found negative for anti‐HBc by CEP were further tested by radioimmunoassay (RIA). Five patients were anti‐HBc‐positive and HBsAg‐negative. No sex predominance was observed, but HBsAg incidence increased with increasing age. The HBeAg antigen was detected in 46.8% of the 161 cases tested for it; the most frequent subtype found was adw (63.7%). The present findings indicate that HBV infection largely contributes to the development of chronic hepatitis in Argentinian patients.