Follow-up of circulating immune complexes in the course of acute viral hepatitis, and correlation with serologically relevant parameters.

Type A, type B and type non-A, non-B hepatitis patients were followed up. Several parameters were checked at ten day intervals. Circulating immune complexes (CIC) were detected in a large percentage of patients by using the PEG test and an assay that makes use of bovine conglutinin (K) as recognition unit, and an enzymatically labelled immune complex as the probe. The decrease in the mean level of CIC in the patients correlated with the decrease in serum transaminases and bilirubinaemia in type A and type B hepatitis. Although the pattern of the mean values of the two assays was similar for type A and type B hepatitis, when the two CIC assays were compared for each patient, no significant correlation was found. In light of these and previous results, the necessity for performing CIC monitoring with more than one assay is also discussed.