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World J Hepatol. Sep 27, 2018; 10(9): 603-611
Published online Sep 27, 2018. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v10.i9.603
Progression and status of antiviral monitoring in patients with chronic hepatitis B: From HBsAg to HBV RNA
Ya-Yun Liu, Xue-Song Liang
Ya-Yun Liu, Xue-Song Liang, Department of Infectious Diseases, Changhai Hospital of Second Military Medical University, Shanghai 200433, China
Author contributions: Liu YY collected data and checked references; Liang XS wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest exists in this review.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Xue-Song Liang, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Infectious Diseases, Changhai Hospital of Second Military Medical University, Changhai Road 168#, Shanghai 200433, China. liangxuesong2000@163.com
Telephone: +86-21-31161902
Received: March 20, 2018
Peer-review started: March 20, 2018
First decision: April 11, 2018
Revised: July 10, 2018
Accepted: July 15, 2018
Article in press: July 16, 2018
Published online: September 27, 2018
Processing time: 191 Days and 23.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: As the surrogate biomarkers of intrahepatic viral replicative activity, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), hepatitis B core-related antigen (HbcrAg), and serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) RNA levels have been advocated as novel serum markers for treatment response in chronic hepatitis B. Currently, quantitative HBsAg has been widely used for predicting treatment response of chronic hepatitis B. HBcrAg can predict the risk of post-treatment reactivation of HBV as it is detectable in patients whose HBV DNA levels are undetectable or HBsAg loss is achieved. Serum HBV RNA may be useful in monitoring drug withdrawal, but clinical studies with large sample sizes remain necessary to further determine this capability.