Expression of interferon-alpha receptor in liver tissues in patients with chronic hepatitis B and its clinical significance

Abstract

To detect the expression of interferon-alpha receptor (IFN-alpha R) in the liver tissues in patients with chronic hepatitis B of different pathological types, and to explore its clinical significance. Liver biopsies were conducted in 80 patients with chronic hepatitis B of different clinical types, and 60 different pathological types were screened from them. The expression of IFN-alpha R was detected by immunohistochemical technique, and its expression level was compared among different groups semi-quantitatively. The correlations between IFN-alpha R intensity and pathological types, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) concentration, hepatitis B e-antigen (HBeAg) concentration and hepatitis B virus (HBV)-DNA viral load were also analyzed by Pearson correlation test. According to pathological types, the IFN-alpha R expression intensity in liver tissues from asymptomatic carriers (12 cases) and patients with mild (20 cases), moderate (19 cases) and severe (9 cases) chronic hepatitis were 7.608+/-2.944, 8.013+/-4.722, 15.424+/-8.187 and 18.829+/-9.696, respectively. In regard to pathological grading, its expression intensity in liver tissues of G0-1 (14 cases), G1-2 (18 cases), G3 (17 cases), G4 (11 cases) was 5.096+/-0.437, 9.345+/-0.988, 13.903+/-1.409 and 23.530+/-1.965, respectively. There was a significant difference of IFN-alpha R expression intensity between groups classified by pathological types and gradings (F(1)=32.526, P(1)=0.002; F(2)=35.482, P(2)=0.001), but not by fibrosis staging (F=3.549, P=0.121). No significant correlation was found between IFN-alpha R expression intensity and HBsAg, HBeAg, HBV-DNA viral load(all P>0.05), but it was positively correlated with ALT level (r=0.546, P<0.05). The expression of IFN-alpha R in liver tissues in patients with chronic hepatitis B correlates well with the pathological grading and ALT level. The high expression of IFN-alpha R might contribute to the good response to interferon, and it could be a useful predicting factor for the therapeutic effect of interferon with chronic hepatitis B.