A study of liver HBV DNA during follow-up of acute viral hepatitis in children.

Twenty-nine children with acute icteric hepatitis were classified as follows after serological tests for the agents of viral hepatitis: hepatitis B 17 patients, hepatitis A 3 patients, hepatitis A + B 1 patient, possible non-A, non-B hepatitis 8 patients. In four of these cases, hepatitis A or non-A, non-B occurred in chronic HBsAg carriers. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA was present in the initial serum of 15 of the 18 patients with acute hepatitis B. About 1 year after onset, HBsAg and HBV DNA were absent in 17 of them (16 of whom developed anti-HBs) and the remaining patient became a chronic HBsAg carrier without HBV DNA in his serum. At the same time, liver biopsy samples from all 29 patients were available for HBV DNA investigation. HBV DNA sequences in the liver were never found in any patient, neither under free form nor integrated into the cellular genome. The absence of HBV DNA integration in any of the liver samples taken about 1 year after the acute phase of hepatitis B suggests that such integration is either unlikely or is transitory during the symptomatic period.