Objective: Serum HBV DNA levels is the most common sign for virus replication in diagnosis and follow-up of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) infection and it has been prevalently used with serologic markers and aminotransferase (ALT) levels. In recent years, it has been shown that HBsAg levels are associated with HBV DNA and ALT levels. In this study, it was aimed to investigate the quantitative HBsAg levels and to compare it with HBV DNA level, ALT-AST levels and HBeAg in CHB patients.

Material and Methods: HBV DNA levels of 91 patients with CHB were measured with real-time PCR method (Cobas TaqMan TM, Roche Laboratories, Germany). Quantitative HBsAg assays were performed with the ELISA method (Architect i2000 SR, Abbott Laboratories, Germany) within a range of 0.05-250 IU/mL.

Results: The median HBV DNA level was determined as 1538.50 (19.00-64 501 284.00) and the median HBsAg was 2210.06 (0,05-46 192,95). The correlation between HBsAg and HBV DNA levels was found statistically significant (p=0.05). In addition, quantitative HBsAg levels in HBeAg positive patients were found to be significantly higher relative to HBeAg negative patients (p<0.05).

Conclusion: The correlation between the quantitative levels of HBsAg and the HBV DNA level, quantitative HBsAg measurement may be an additional complementary marker for monitoring replication of HBV DNA in patients with CHB as well as HBV-DNA. In patients with elevated ALT levels, quantitative HBsAg measurement can be considered in the follow-up of CHB patients because of their high HBV DNA and HBsAg levels.