HBeAg/anti-HBe antigenic system in liver diseases in Greece.

HBeAg and anti-HBe were sought by RIA in the serum of 320 HBsAg-positive and 27 HBsAg-negative Greek patients with acute and chronic liver diseases. The incidence of HBeAg and anti-HBe in the group of 60 patients with acute hepatitis B was 23% and 77%, respectively. Among the 35 patients with chronic active hepatitis 6 (17%) were HBeAg-positive and 24 (69%) anti-HBe positive; among the 25 patients with chronic persistent hepatitis 3 (12%) were HBeAg-positive and 22 (88%) anti-HBe positive. Similar results were found in the groups of patients with cirrhosis and hepatoma. These findings show that all cases of acute hepatitis B were HBeAg-positive at the onset of the disease and a seroconversion to anti-HBe appeared very early in most of the cases. The extremely high incidence in particular of anti-HBe in the Greek patients with chronic liver diseases is in disagreement with the results of other studies from other populations. These differences may express differences in the immune response of the host in the different populations, or in the nature of the infecting strain commonly present in each country. Most of the HBsAg-negative patients with cirrhosis were found to be HBeAg or anti-HBe-positive.