Patient's question:
It is well known that liver disease patients have problems with their liver function. Upon examination, this is also the case. What are the reasons for abnormal liver function in patients with minor hepatitis B? How can we infer this from the perspective of liver disease?Doctor's answer:
Generally, the status in hepatitis B virus infection is considered the hibernation period of hepatitis B virus copies. At this stage, there are almost no hepatitis B virus copies, and the patient's condition is relatively stable with low transmissibility. The first reason may be that the person has been infected with a pre-C region variant of the hepatitis B virus. This pre-C region variant is more common in Mediterranean and Asian regions, accounting for 40% to 80% of chronic hepatitis B cases. Although such patients have negative serum HBeAg, they still possess long-term low-level hepatitis B virus DNA copies, and the condition can still progress. Patients often experience persistent or intermittent serum transaminase elevations, leading to progressive liver disease, and the efficacy of interferon treatment is often poor.