Advances in the genome-wide association study of chronic hepatitis B susceptibility in Asian population.

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is the most common chronic liver disease resulting from viral infection and has become a serious threat to human health. Each year, about 1.2 million people in the world die from diseases caused by chronic infection of hepatitis B virus. The genetic polymorphism is significantly associated with the susceptibility to chronic hepatitis B. Genome-wide association study was recently developed and has become an important tool to detect susceptibility genes of CHB. To date, a number of CHB-associated susceptibility loci and regions have been identified by scientists over the world. To clearly understand the role of susceptibility loci in the occurrence of CHB is important for the early diagnosis and prevention of CHB.