Virological profile of hepatitis B infection in Black African HBsAg chronic carriers

Aims: 1) Describe virological profile of patients followed-up for chronic Hepatitis B virus (HBV); 2) Search for a correlation between cirrhosis and virological profile of patients. Patients and Methods: Retrospective study about 75 HBsAg positive patients followed-up for at least one year in two medical structures of Abidjan. Studied parameters: clinical signs, biological check-up (serum transaminases every 3 months for at least one year, platelets count and prothrombin rate), abdominal echography, virological check-up (HBsAg, HBeAg, anti-HBe, total anti-HBc, anti-VHC and anti- HIV Ab, HBV DNA biannual quantification during at least one year). Histological or biochemical evaluation of hepatic activity and fibrosis were realized in case of transaminases elevation or HBV DNA > 2000 IU/ml. Results: The mean age of our 75 patients (54 men) was 42.1 ± 11.54 years. HBV was fortuitously discovered in most of our patients (74.7% of the cases). The HBV inactive chronic carriage was 50.7%; HBeAg-positive and HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis represented respectively 9.3% and 40% of the cases. Mean B viral load was 327.5 IU/ml in HBV inactive chronic carriers, 44,047,663 IU/ml in HBeAg-positive chronic HBV and 20,231,822 IU/ml in HBeAg-negative chronic HBV. Cirrhosis prevalence was significantly high- er in positive or negative HBeAg chronic HBV than in HBV inactive chronic carriers (32.4% vs. 5.3%, p = 0.008; OR = 8.6). Conclusion: Our patients’ virological profile was dominated by HBeAg-negative chronic HBV and HBV inactive chronic carriage. The risk of having cirrhosis was multiplied by 8.6 in case of active chronic hepatitis compared with HBV inactive chronic carriage.