Institute of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia.
Viruses. 2023 Jan 28;15(2):373. doi: 10.3390/v15020373.
The present-day management of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection relies on constant and appropriate monitoring of viral activity, disease progression and treatment response. Traditional HBV infection biomarkers have many limitations in predicting clinical outcomes or therapy success. Quantitation of HBV core antibodies (qAnti-HBc) is a new non-invasive biomarker that can be used in solving multiple diagnostic problems. It was shown to correlate well with infection phases, level of hepatic inflammation and fibrosis, exacerbations during chronic infection and presence of occult infection. Further, the level of qAnti-HBc was recognised as predictive of spontaneous or therapy-induced HBeAg and HBsAg seroclearance, relapse after therapy discontinuation, re-infection after liver transplantation and viral reactivation upon immunosuppression. However, qAnti-HBc cannot be relied upon as a single diagnostic test to solve all dilemmas, and its diagnostic and prognostic power can be much improved when combined with other diagnostic biomarkers (HBV DNA, HBeAg, qHBsAg and anti-HBs antibodies). The availability of commercial qAnti-HBc diagnostic kits still needs to be improved. The comparison of results from different studies and definitions of universal cut-off values continue to be hindered because many methods are only semi-quantitative. The clinical utility of qAnti-HBc and the methods used for its measurement are the focus of this review.
目前,乙型肝炎病毒 (HBV) 感染的管理依赖于对病毒活性、疾病进展和治疗反应的持续和适当监测。传统的 HBV 感染标志物在预测临床结局或治疗成功方面存在许多局限性。HBV 核心抗体定量 (qAnti-HBc) 是一种新的非侵入性生物标志物,可用于解决多种诊断问题。它与感染阶段、肝炎症和纤维化程度、慢性感染期间的恶化以及隐匿性感染的存在密切相关。此外,qAnti-HBc 的水平被认为可以预测自发或治疗诱导的 HBeAg 和 HBsAg 血清清除、治疗停药后的复发、肝移植后的再感染以及免疫抑制后的病毒再激活。然而,qAnti-HBc 不能作为单一的诊断测试来解决所有的难题,当与其他诊断生物标志物(HBV DNA、HBeAg、qHBsAg 和抗-HBs 抗体)结合使用时,其诊断和预后能力可以得到很大提高。商业 qAnti-HBc 诊断试剂盒的可用性仍需改进。由于许多方法只是半定量的,不同研究之间的结果比较和通用临界值的定义仍然受到阻碍。qAnti-HBc 的临床应用及其测量方法是本次综述的重点。