The Role of Quantitative HBsAg Levels in Chronic Hepatitis B Infection

Introduction: Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) infection is essential for patient management, including treatment and follow-up.Therefore, qHBsAg may help physicians to reveal the stages of HBV infection.This study aimed to examine the variances in quantitative hepatitis B surface antigen (qHBsAg) levels across various stages of viral infection.Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 183 patients who attended the Infectious Diseases outpatient clinic at xxx Hospital between July and December 2020, tested positive for HBsAg, and had not undergone prior treatment were included.Results: Of 183 patients, 54.1% were male.The mean quantitative HBsAg (qHBsAg) level was 2.155 IU/ml (interquartile range: 625-12.759).Correlation analysis revealed that qHBsAg was significantly associated with age, laboratory results, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA.In Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis, which evaluates the predictive power of qHBsAg for chronic hepatitis, the AUC was 0.749 and the optimal cut-off value for qHBsAg was 3.081 IU/mL.The cut-off value for 95% specificity of qHBsAg in predicting chronic hepatitis was 38.641 IU/mL.Conclusion: Quantitative HBsAg is an easily applicable and relatively inexpensive test for distinguishing different stages of chronic hepatitis.Therefore, qHBsAg can help clinicians in assess liver injury and plan treatment at the most appropriate time in patients with CHB infection.In patients with HBV DNA levels of exceeding 2,000 IU/mL, commencement of treatment without the necessity of liver biopsy may be considered when the quantitative HBsAg (qHBsAg) surpasses 38,000 IU/mL.