Abstract
Treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) with human leukocyte interferon (IFN-α) was studied in terms of increase of 2′,5′-oligoadenylate (2-5A) synthetase activity in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL) after IFN-α administration. The 2-5A synthetase activity in PBL increased to a maximum 16-24 h after IFN-α injection and then gradually decreased, while serum HB virus DNA polymerase (HBV-DNAP) activity, which corresponds to the amount of HBV virions in the serum, decreased to a minimum after about 48 h. Increase in 2-5A synthetase activity was followed about 1 day later by decrease in DNAP activity. Furthermore, of 9 patients treated with IFN for at least 22 weeks and observed for over 1 year after IFN treatment, the effective 5 cases in which HBeAg disappeared during IFN therapy and did not reappear showed rather high increases in 2-5A synthetase activity, whereas the ineffective 4 cases in which HBeAg remained positive at the end of IFN therapy showed little increases in enzyme activity. The present study suggests that prescreening by 2-5A synthetase assay before IFN therapy should be useful for obtaining better results in IFN treatment of CHB patients.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.