Follow-up study in chronic active hepatitis after therapies with immunosuppressive drugs and tiopronin.

Follow-up studies were conducted in the patients with chronic active hepatitis treated 10 years ago with tiopronin (TP) or corticosteroids (CS). HB surface antigen (HBsAg) was measured in previously collected paraffin embedded liver sections by enzyme-labelled antibody technique. Of 72 cases examined, 15 cases were treated with TP only (8 cases) and combination with CS (7 cases), 38 cases with CS and 19 cases not treated with TP or CS (control group). Two deaths occurred in TP group (each 1 case in the single and combination treatments) in the 9th year due to bleeding of oesophageal varices in a chronic aggressive hepatitis (2B type) with HBsAg diffusely distributed in liver tissue. Two deaths were found in CS group and 4 in the control group. No significant difference as noted in the rehabilitation rate in HBsAg negative cases of TP group and CS group versus the control group. In the positive cases, the rehabilitation rate was found to be 66.7% in the CS group compared with 0% in the non-CS group, and each 3 cases out of 5 rehabilitated by the single and combination treatments with TP respectively.