Icteric flare of chronic hepatitis B in a 95-year old patient

Therapeutic effects of recombinant human augmenter of liver regeneration on murine liver damage caused by carbon tetrachloride

AIM: To explore the therapeutic effects of recombinant human augmenter of liver regeneration (ALR) on CCl₄ liver damage of mice.

METHODS: The recombinant human ALR was prepared by standard procedure of fermentation and chromatography techniques. Chemical liver damage model of mice was established by CCl₄. The mice were divided into two groups: group one was treated by recombinant ALR, 2 mg/kg or 20 g, 1/12 h, 4 times, and group two was treated by normal saline as control. After treatment, the mice were sacrificed for collecting the blood sample. For evaluation of chemical liver damage, the serum ALT and AST levels were determined by an autobiochemical processor.

RESULTS: The CCl₄ liver damage model was established. After the treatment with recombinant human ALR, the ALT and AST levels in treated groups were significantly decreased as compared with the group treated with normal saline (ALT: 991 U/L vs 2134 U/L, P < 0.01; AST: 938 U/L vs 1873 U/L, P < 0.01), indicating the potent therapeutic effects of recombinant human ALR on mice model of chemical damage caused by CCl₄.

CONCLUSION: Recombinant human ALR is successfully prepared and effective in the treatment of murine CCl₄ liver damage.

Dynamic determination and analysis of serum virus load in patients with chronic HBV infection

AIM: To observe the variation of viral load and characteristics of within-host dynamics in patients with chronic hepatitis B virus infection without receiving antiviral therapy.

METHODS: Serum was collected consecutively from 3 patients with different clinical phenotype, ALT and total bilirubin were determined, and HBV DNA was measured by quantitative TaqMan fluorogenic PCR.

RESULTS: Spontaneous fluctuations of HBV DNA load were observed when measured daily, wkly and moly in our untreated patients with chronic HBV infection, but there was no determinate correlation between HBV DNA loads and ALT values.

CONCLUSION: The spontaneous fluctuation of viral load in untreated patients with different clinical phenotype displays some characteristic patterns. Here we propose a PID pattern for host feedback to virus using population quantity of HBV as variant, which may be used for the prediction of virus-host ecological evolution in persistent HBV infection.