HBcrAgandpgRNAand the therapeutic effect inHBeAg-positive patients receiving anti-viral therapy, baseline serum HBV-RNAis a powerful predictor of response.

We usedHBV core antigen (HbcrAg), pre-genomic RNA (pgRNA) and other biomarkers to evaluate the therapeutic effect inHBV infected patients receiving anti-viral therapy.127HBeAg-positive patients were enrolled: 35 patientsreceived nucleotide therapy, 14patients receivedinterferon and 78 patients received combination therapy with both. HBcrAg, pgRNA and other biomarkerswere detected at different time-points, wedefined the decreased titre of HBcrAg and HBeAg from baseline to 6andbaseline to 12 months asHBcrAg and HBeAg, which were used to predict HBeAg seroconversion. Furthermore, we used the time-dependent receiver operator curve of different markers to analyse HBeAg seroconversion.For HBeAg seroconversion: at 6 months, 0.75log10 U/mLofHBcrAgand 1.47log10 PEIU/mLofHBeAgshowedmaximumpredictive value in receiver operator curve analysis (Youden's indexvalues for area under the curve of 0.687and0.646, respectively). At 12 months, 2.05log10 U/mLof HBcrAg and1.92 log10 PEIU/mLof HBeAg showed improved prediction (maximum Youden's indexvalues,with areas under the curve of 0.688and 0.698, respectively).pg RNA was a better predictor of outcomedueand the concentrations of 6.20 log10 IU/mL of pg RNAand 8.0 log10 U/mL of HBcrAg were cut-off values for response in aKaplan-Meier curve analysis. Our results may be used to identify the pg RNA concentration in patients at baseline and HBcrAg during therapy who are likely to achieve HBeAg seroconversion according to the cut-off value at different time-points, thus helping to evaluate the therapeutic effect.