• Rabab Fouad, Sherief Musa, Dina Sabry, Ahmad Salama, Shereen Abdel Alem, Mira Atef, and Naglaa Zayed.
• Endemic Medicine and Hepatology Department, Faculty of medicine, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
• Afr Health Sci. 2020 Jun 1; 20 (2): 649-655.

BackgroundHBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B infection has a divergent clinical course from that of HBeAg-positive infection.ObjectivesTo analyze the frequency and to compare the different features of HBeAg-negative and HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B patients.MethodsOne hundred and twenty one Egyptian patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB), underwent laboratory investigations and transient elastography (TE). Comparisons according to HBeAg status were conducted regarding their demographic, liver biochemical and virologic characters.Result97 patients (80.2%) were HBeAg-negative while 24 patients (19.8%) were HBeAg-positive. HBeAg-negative patients were significantly older in age than CHBeAg-positive patients (p=0.001). ALT levels in HBeAg-negative patients were significantly lower than those in HBeAg-positive patients (p=0.02), whereas serum albumin was lower in the HBeAg-positive group (p=0.03). The percentage of HBV DNA higher than 20000 IU/mL in HBeAg-negative patients was lower than those in HBeAg-positive patients (p=0.24). Stages of fibrosis by TE showed that 30.9% of HBeAg-negative and 41.7% of HBeAg-positive had a fibrosis score >F2. Four patients (3.3%) were diagnosed with HCC; all of whom were HBeAg-negative.ConclusionHBeAg-negative patients compared with HBeAg-positive patients had older age, lower ALT and serum HBVDNA levels, but more incidence of HCC.© 2020 Fouad R et al.

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