Determination of HBeAg by radioimmunoassay: prognostic implications in hepatitis B.

A radioimmunoassay was used to determine the presence of the hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) and anti-HBe in the serum of 12 hepatitis B patients, who were follofed from an early phase of the illness into convalescence. The duration of detectable HBeAg in serum from these patients, in all ow whom the disease ran a normal course, was compared with the persistence of HBeAg in serum of nine patients with a protracted course and persistence of HBsAg in serum for more than 1 year. None of the hepatitis B patients with a normal course of the disease had HBeAg demonstrable for more than 9 weeks after the onset of illness (mean 5.4 weeks), whereas all patients developing chronic hepatitis had HBeAg in serum for more than 1 year after the onset of illness. These findings indicate that the detection of HBeAg in serum by radioimmunoassay for 10 weeks or more after the onset of illness implies a great risk of progression of the hepatitis B infection to chronic liver disease.