we have also to keep in mind the nagalase test, until now we have only 2 members who did the test:
nagalase about 1 and hbvdna 900iu
nagalase 0.69 (normal <0.6) decreasing hbvdna with hbsab 30-50miu/ml
my idea is low naglase correlates with immune control
if we get more people to make this test we can easily make a connection.hbsag is not correlated at all with nagalase in these two
pisa was interested to check nagalase of their patients but i dont think they will ever get the funds
nagalase on other diseases, the higher the more advanced disease:
autism 0.9-3
hiv+ 2-5
lyme 1-3
CFS 1-3 the most, few with advanced disease 3-6
I think most of what you say may be correct when one is not taking antivirals.
When you take antivirals, your serum hbvdna can go undetectable, but your serum qHBsAg will still be high. Then serum qHBsAg is correlated to cccDNA.
My comments to 4est are in the context of someone taking antivirals.
When you are not taking antivirals and your hbvdna is low or undetectable, then obviously you are under immune control (this new phrase is what we are going to hear a lot more of from now on). Precisely how this is achieved is unknown(?), most likely it is by cytokines (such as Interferon) that inhibit viral replication and they do not kill the infected liver cells, such as by CTL, otherwise your ALT will be elevated.
These are just my own understanding
there is only correlation with hbsag and cccdna when hbsag gets low to immune control range like less than 1000iu/ml, weak or no correlation when higher with cccdna
no correlation at all with serum hbvdna until hbsag very low/undetactable
immune system doesnt work directly on hbvdna, it cuts antigens/cccdna first, hbvdna undetactable comes with hbsag negative and sometimes very low hbvdna remains for years despite immune control.this is also a clever way because hbvdna und is of no use to gain immune control, the attack must be towards hbsag and cccdna and this is exactly what interferon does on responders
some more non responders can be rescued by long term hbvdna suppression and then interferon add-on
i think focus of therapy must be on hbsag lowering only because the rest have no importance to clear or to achieve immune control
"yes, this can be the case but in this case we should have a correlation between the reduction of Dane Particles (new virions) and reduction of qHBsAg and I don't remember to notice that correlation."
The correlation is decline in serum qHbsAg follows decline in serum hbvdna.
"what do you think ?
I agree that cccDNA is the best indication of cured or not, but is hard to a obtain a value for cccDNA. (also i don't remember to notice a correlation of "something" with cccDNA) "
When serum hbvdna is undetectable, serum qHbsAg is a marker for transcriptionally active cccDNA as some scientists believed.
http://www.md2010.org/files/presents/s2/c2-1.pdf
there are some conversions here and good explanation of hbsag meaning
what is the conversion rate from ug/ml to IU/ml for HBsAg ?
look also graphics, there was a sharp decrease on hbsag on all (Except one) despite high hbvdna because both interferon and adv are weak on hbvdna, i am sure tenofovir and truvada can do so much more in combo with interferon as some single clinical cases showed
good observation on this study is that those clearing hbsag had higher alt baseline and during treatment, this reflects higher clearance of inceted cells by immune system, while cccdna baseline wasn t different from the others
http://www.intmedpress.com/serveFile.cfm?sUID=ba638ef5-bdee-40df-b11c-81f4467a73e7
this is a good study with all parameters registered, hbsag, hbvdna and cccdna both blood and liver, this is a very good source to see what happens in real combo where dana particles are stopped by nuc (keeping in mind adv is sooo weak and tnf can do much better) and interferon clearing cccdna
this is an old study published 2007, study probably from 2006 or even earlier.the very bad thing is that this is the last study showing all parameters, they just filter all those tests now and just look at blood hbvdna and alt (very rarely hbsag) which is totally useless.
as you all know drug makers can filter and publish what they like from a study and keep data they dont like for themselves
yes, this can be the case but in this case we should have a correlation between the reduction of Dane Particles (new virions) and reduction of qHBsAg and I don't remember to notice that correlation.
what do you think ?
I agree that cccDNA is the best indication of cured or not, but is hard to a obtain a value for cccDNA. (also i don't remember to notice a correlation of "something" with cccDNA)
I have a theory why antivirals also decrease HbsAg levels. I will try it on you.
HBsAg in the blood comes from 3 sources:
1. Non-infectious HbsAg coated particles (by far the greatest amount)
2. As the surface coat of Dane Particles (new virions)
3. HbsAg produced by S-gene embedded in our genome (very small amount and not always the case).
When we take antivirals, the number of Dane particles is reduced, as reflected by lower hbvdna in the blood. So one source, No. 2, is reduced. Therefore we get a decrease in qHBsAg.
But until we can also reduce the total amount of cccDNA in all the liver cells, we are not cured. So far, only our immune system, stimulated by Interferon, can reduce cccDNA by killing infected liver cells or inhibit the ability of cccDNA to replicate(?).
That's my theory. :-)
http://www.intmedpress.com/serveFile.cfm?sUID=c0f29db5-b3ac-4ddd-b45d-2b5cd41ef3cc
on the same issue like teh previous link. - this is intresting that mentioned a 3 curse INF (is that 3 years INF ? )
http://www.natap.org/2010/APASL/APASL_05.htm - another report regarding HBsAg decrease (the antiviral used was lam - but we can have a look on both presentation and have a idea)
http://www.hivandhepatitis.com/2011_conference/easl2011/posters/Heathcote.pdf
this is lookiong for the relation between qHBsAg and HBeAg seroconversion and we can find some interesting results if we watch qHBsAg variation in time.
- we can see a 1.1 log decrease using tenofovir / - we can see that genotype D have the higher qHBsAg values ....
From the first abstract (http://www.jhep-elsevier.com/article/S0168-8278(10)01088-3/abstract)
"Antiviral therapy decreased serum HBsAg levels by 79.6% (p = 0.012) and liverHBV-DNA by 84.4% (p= 0.026) in paired comparisons and, as expected,significantly decreased serum HBV-DNA and ALT levels, but not cccDNA."
do you know what anitiviral was used ?
if you check dr.brunetto she has been everywhere getting paid for her research by governments/institutions from US to germany to japan....she is so well known that she could make a research conference with all the most advanced world researchers directly in university hospital in pisa and this is very good because there is no drug makers involvment or interference with this
Thanks, I read it. Look like your doctor friends from Pisa are busy, teaming up with doctors from Hong Kong and Australia (Stephen Locarnini). Good paper.
the claims that nuc reduces HBsAg......
mhhh i think the whole paper is bullsh**, the nucs increase hbsag because when they block hbvdna inside hepatocytes the immune system thinks there is no virus so it decreases antibodies and so on while the cells is actually full of virus
i think the paper is just produced for making disinformation we all know that nucs are useless to clear hbv so hbsag must be studies on immune modulators that reduce both hbsag, cccdna, pgrna not on useless nucs
biopsies measure everything, they wanted to make me a biopsy in pisa just to see clearly everything but i said since there are no cures why should we damage my liver just for curiosity........and in any case we have clear indicators that when hbsag gets to less than 100iu/ml seroconversion is almost 100% within 5 years
Don't know. I have requested the whole paper. It just surprised me that they can measure HBsAg+ve hepatocytes /nm2, liver hbvdna, HBcAg+ve hepatocytes, liver HBsAg and liver HBcAg. And of course, the claims that nuc reduces HBsAg.
hbsag reflects immune control over hbv, this is the most important meaning about hbsag quantification
as to correlation with cccdna i just follow brunetto studies because there are countries like US where they are trying to keep hbvdna pcr instead of very cheap hbsag and not all studies and researchers are serious the same so i tend to look at the most relevant researchers and care much less of unknown researchers
we do know from brunetto that in hbeag negative there is little correlation with cccdna except for very low levels where there is even immune control over the infection and in this case correlation is pretty clear.
if they studied hbsag under nucs they wasted their time, nucs increase hbsag and suppress immune response....
what are the levels of hbsag studied by these researchers?
this group of researchers are among the most advanced in hbv research...i do know brunetto, locarnini and marcelin as the most expert on hbv field:
Chan HL, Thompson A, Martinot-Peignoux M, Piratvisuth T, Cornberg M, Brunetto MR, Tillmann HL, Kao JH, Jia JD, Wedemeyer H, Locarnini S, Janssen HL, Marcellin P; for the Good Practice in using sAg in Chronic Hepatitis B Study Group (GPs-CHB Study Group).
Source
Department of Medicine and Therapeutics and Institute of Digestive Disease, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Abstract
Quantitative HBsAg had been suggested to be helpful in management of HBV, but assays were cumbersome. The recent availability of commercial quantitative assays has restarted the interest in quantitative serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) as a biomarker for prognosis and treatment response in chronic hepatitis B. HBsAg level reflects the transcriptional activity of cccDNA rather than the absolute amount of cccDNA copies. Serum HBsAg level tend to be higher in hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive than HBeAg-negative patients. Among patients with a low HBV DNA (<2000 IU/ml), HBsAg <1000 IU/ml in genotype D HBV infection and HBsAg <100 IU/ml in genotype B/C HBV infection is associated with inactive carrier state in HBeAg-negative patients. The HBsAg reduction by nucleos(t)ide analogues (NA) is not as pronounced as by interferon treatment. On peginterferon treatment, sustained responders tend to show greater HBsAg decline than the non-responders. The optimal on-treatment HBsAg cutoff to predict response needs further evaluation in HBeAg-positive patients, but an absence of HBsAg decline together with a <2 log reduction in HBV DNA at week 12 can serve as stopping rule in HBeAg-negative patients with genotype D HBV infection. A rapid serum HBsAg decline during NA therapy may identify patients who will clear HBsAg in the long-term. There are early reports among Asian patients that an HBsAg level of <100 IU/ml might predict lower risk of relapse after stopping NA treatment. In clinical practice, serum HBsAg level should be used together with, but not as a substitute for, HBV DNA.
Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier B.V.