A single center, large long-term cohort study of the relations between mutations in Basic-Core-Promoter and pre-C regions of Hepatitis B Virus DNA and clinic-pathologic outcome of HBeAg-negative/anti-HBe-positive phase

RICCO, G; COLOMBATTO, P; OLIVIERI, F; BONINO, F; FLICHMAN, D.; BLEVE, P; ROMAGNOLI, V ; BRUNETTO, MR; CAVALLONE, D; MORICONI, F; COCO, B; SALVATI, A

San Francisco

Congreso; Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases; 2021

American Association for the Study of Liver

Background: The relation between Basic-Core-Promoter (BCP) and pre-Core (pC) mutations of hepatitis-B-virus (HBV) DNA and the clinic-pathologic outcome of HBeAg-negative/ anti-HBe-positive HBV carriers remains unclear. We studied BCP/pC regions and correlated different mutational patterns with clinical profiles. Methods: We directly sequenced BCP/ pC HBV-DNA in 429 consecutive chronic HBeAg-negative/ anti-HBe-positive, followed prospectively for 98.6 (12.0/279.7) months: 125 HBeAg-negative infection (ENI, HBV-DNA≤2,000 IU/mL); 62 Grey-Zone (GZ; HBV-DNA≤20,000 IU/mL); 242 chronic hepatitis (CH), 74 with cirrhosis (CH+CI) (HBVDNA> 20,000 IU/mL). Results: Overall BCP/pC mutants were found in 413 (96.3%) cases: A1762T: 53.1%; G1764A: 65.0%; pre-Core-Initiation-Codon (PIC) 13.5%; G1896A: 73.0%. A1762T and G1764A prevalence was lower in ENI+GZ than CHB [35.8% vs 66.5%, p