Background: Cellular immune responses seem to prevail in acute hepatitis, whereas chronically infected patients demonstrate generally suppressed cellular immune responses and significantly greater antibody responses.
Aim: To study hepatitis B virus (HBV) specific T cell proliferative responses in HBV related liver diseases.
Methods: We analyzed the T lymphocyte proliferative responses to the nonspecific mitogen phytohemagglutinin (PHA) and the HBV specific hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) by calculating T cell proliferation index in 10 acute viral hepatitis (AVH) patients, 19 chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients, 10 HBV cirrhotics, 10 inactive carriers and 10 healthy controls using MTT assay.
Results: The mean proliferation index (PI) to PHA was highest in healthy controls (133.2 + 58.1) and lowest in cirrhotics (44.1 + 46.9) with all other groups falling in between. On comparing the mean T cell responses to HBcAg, AVH patients had the highest mean response (186.48 + 116.37) followed by CHB (137.9 + 134.3), inactive carriers (63.2 + 41.2) and cirrhotics (55.5 + 42.7).
Conclusions: Patients with AVH had the highest T cell response to HBcAg, which probably explains the clearance of virus in these patients, in contrast to patients with cirrhosis who had the lowest T cell response.