@Tnn: Yes, I basically agree with all that @john.tavis has said. Little to worry about, but worth following up with your doctor about these slight out of range tests. Difficult to say anything about your HBV status without the HBsAg and anti-HBs results.
@MDX: Welcome to the forum and hope this community is able to support you however you need. Good to hear that your symptoms are improving with your treatment and that you are active in protecting the ones around you.
Your ALTs are slightly higher than normal, which suggests a low amount of liver injury. If this is caused by the HBV infection, then you should expect this to go down in your 6-monthly monitoring blood tests. HBeAg-negative and HBeAb-positive is generally linked to lower viral loads, so this is a good sign. This is not necessarily hard-to-treat; TAF is very effective for HBV regardless if you are HBeAg-positive or -negative.
If HBsAg drops for example from 2000 to 1000 due to pegINF. Once the pegINF is stopped then what happens to HBsAg level. Does it remain on 1000 or does it go back to 2000.
Normally, HBV DNA declines during pegIFN in most patients. There are two ways to establish if someone is going to have a sustained control of infection after removal of pegIFN therapy:
A flare in ALT when HBV DNA is suppressed (you would need to test this frequently to be sure you catch it). You mentioned you are taking TAF so HBV DNA suppression is likely occurring.
I decline in HBsAg greater than 90% from the baseline at 12 or 24 weeks of therapy.
Since we don’t have your pre-treatment HBsAg (2) will be hard to determine. However, I would suggest to perform a quantitative HBsAg now and then look again at 24 weeks. If HBsAg values at both time points remain high or with no significant decline, it may be a sign of pegIFN futility.
Unfortunately, clinical studies with TDF + pegIFN show that many patients who achieve HDV clearance during therapy rebound after therapy is removed. However this is not the case for all patients (especially if they also clear HBsAg).
Hi am gongo from East Africa. I have been diagnosed with hep b since 2019 and I am visiting my Dr after every six months am not in treatment yet. About six months now I feeling abdominal pain especially under my right rib. Last week I visited my Dr and suggested to do fibro scan, normal ultra sound and blood tests. The fibro scan results come 12.5 Pa, Normal ultra sound and blood tests Dr said they are Ok but the fibro scan results said is some how high beyond limit (10pa) for people living with hep b but still Dr said it’s not time to start medication. We need to wait for another more six months. I have been searching the results of fibro scan; it seem that I have gone into cirrhosis. Any experiences on this.
Dear Availlant
Thank you for your response unfortunately I don’t have these details at the moment because it stays in hospital records but I will make a follow up to get them only I have is viral load which is 870
Hi! So glad to have found this community. My mom is 70 and she just got blood work back with the following:
Hbsag: negative
Hbsab: negative
Hbcab: positive
She’s also had all the liver related blood tests, everything is normal - ast, alt, alk phos, bilirubin, albumin, etc
What does this result typically mean? It’s my understanding that since she doesn’t have hbsab, she hasn’t developed antibodies from fighting HB so is she currently still actively infected?
Is it a good sign that she’s 70 and this is her first time hearing about it?
Thank you so much for your time, I’m really freaking out since the test results came in and we don’t have our next appointment for a few weeks.
Hi Lily, thanks for posting and sharing your questions. With the above 3 test results, it appears that your mom does NOT have the hep b virus since her HBsAg is negative. She also doesn’t appear to have, as you rightly noted in your message, any protective antibodies since her HBsAb is negative as well. The 3rd test result - HBcAb - and is positive which usually indicates a person has been exposed to the virus at some point. But since your mother is negative both for the virus and the protective antibodies, I wonder if it’s a false positive? The bottom line is that your mother does not appear to be infected with hep b and her liver seems to be in good health since you reported all of her liver-related blood work is normal. She probably needs to have thd hep b panel of blood tests repeated at some point to further clarify her situation. But you don’t have to panic! I’m sure there will be others who will respond as well, but I wanted to calm and reassure you that your mother looks like she’s fine. Always, Joan
Thank you very much for your reassuring message Joan! I really shouldn’t Google so much and I should learn to wait to see the doctor, sometimes the information on the internet can be really overwhelming/scary! Thanks again!
Welcome to the forum and thank you for sharing your story. I agree with @Joan_Block’s post and it may be a false positive. It would be worth repeating, but I would be stressed out about it given the negative HBsAg level. It might be worth also getting her a HBV vaccination to induce protective HBsAb levels, though I believe it is more difficult for older people raise antibodies.
Thank you so much for your reassurance Thomas! You and Joan have helped to put my mind at ease until her next appointment! Thank you again for this wonderful community!
