Clinical Characteristics and Treatment for Patients with Occult Chronic Hepatitis B

Objective To observe the clinical manifestations and assess direct antiviral effect for patients with occult hepatitis B in China.Methods The study includes 15 patients with occult hepatitis B and their medical history,family history,firstdiagnosis time,confirmed-diagnosis time,laboratory report,anti-viral therapy and outcomes were analyzed.Results The average age of the patients is 38.67-year old(6 males and 9 females),2 with acute hepatitis B(2/15,13.3%),13 with no hepatitis history(13/15,86.6%),8 with family history(8/15,53.3%),6 with no family history(6/15,40%),1 with unknown family history(1/15,6.6%).Eight patients were treated with entecavir(0.5 mg/day,taken orally),with effective results and steady conditions;3 patients were treated with lamivudine(0.1 g/day,taken orally),2 of them were prescribed to take adefovir dipivoxil additionally due to drug-resistance,the other one was treated with lamivudine continuously without drug-resistance;4 cases refused anti-viral therapy.One patient’s condition remained steady,1 patient died of cirrhosis with portal hypertension and liver failure 5 years after firstdiagnosis,1 patient progressed to hepatocellular carcinoma and accepted surgery operation treatment 5 years after first-diagnosis,the other 1 patient progressed to compensatory cirrhosis 2 years after first-diagnosis and is steady from then,which indicates that occult chronic hepatitis B can progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma without therapy in time.Conclusions The clinical characteristics of 15 cases with occult chronic hepatitis B showed that these patients with short latency,younger age when being-struck,and light damage to liver function.The efficacy and drugresistance of nucleos(t)ide-analogue(entecavir,lamivudine,adefovir dipivoxil)in treatment of patients with occult chronic hepatitis B are similar to chronic hepatitis B.