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. 2015 Feb 17;10(2):e0117590.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0117590. eCollection 2015.

Manifestations of perihepatic lymph nodes in acute flare of chronic hepatitis B: association with HBeAg status and with HBeAg seroconversion

Yen-Ling Ko  1 , Chi-Shu Sun  2 , Kun-Ming Chung  1 , Yu-Min Lin  2 , I-Che Feng  2 , Ming-Jen Sheu  2 , Lok-Beng Koay  2 , Ching-Yih Lin  2 , Chung-Han Ho  3 , Hsing-Tao Kuo  4
Affiliations

Manifestations of perihepatic lymph nodes in acute flare of chronic hepatitis B: association with HBeAg status and with HBeAg seroconversion

Yen-Ling Ko et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

It has been observed that enlargement of perihepatic lymph nodes may be seen in patients with chronic hepatitis B, particularly during acute flares of CHB. We hypothesized that there may be a correlation between the nodal change patterns in CHB patients with acute flare and HBeAg status. Perihepatic lymph node sizes of 87 patients with acute flares of CHB were documented, with a median follow up of 43 months. Patients were separated into 3 groups, HBeAg-positive with HBe seroconversion (group 1), HBeAg-positive without HBe seroconversion (group 2), and HBeAg-negative (group 3). Group 1 has the highest incidence of enlarged lymph nodes (92.3%) compared with group 2 (75.8%) and group 3 (46.8%) (p = 0.003). And if nodal width at acute flare was > 8mm and interval change of nodal width was >3mm, the incidence of HBeAg seroconversion will be 75% (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Larger perihepatic lymph nodes are seen in CHB acute flare patients with positive HBeAg and the magnitude of nodal width change may predict HBeAg seroconversion at recovery.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. The ROC curve of nodal width for predicting HBeAg seroconversion in chronic B hepatitis with acute flare.
The area under curve is 0.8052.
Fig 2
Fig 2. The power of combining nodal width (WT) at acute flare stage and nodal change (dWT) between acute flare and recovery stage to predict HBeAg seroconversion.
*p-value is from Pearson’s chi-square test.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Validation for nodal length values measured by ultrasound (LT-US) with computed tomography (LT-CT).
Validation for nodal width values measured by ultrasound (WT-US) with computed tomography (WT-CT).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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