LETTER

Do baseline ALT levels predict complications of chronic hepatitis B?

T-I Huo¹, J-C Wu¹, S-D Lee¹

¹ Taipei Veterans General Hospital and National Yang-Ming University, School of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr T-I Huo
Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan; tihuo@vghtpe.gov.tw

Keywords: alanine aminotransferase; chronic hepatitis B; hepatitis B

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We read with interest the paper by Yuen et al (Gut 2005;54:1610–4). This study included a large patient cohort with chronic hepatitis B and analysed the determinants predicting outcome. The authors concluded that low level viraemia and mildly elevated serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels more commonly led to the development of complications. This conclusion however was not supported by their findings as the independent predictive factors were male sex, age, stigmata of chronic liver disease, and others, whereas serum ALT and hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA levels were not.

It is questionable if patients with mildly elevated baseline ALT levels are truly associated with a higher risk of complications. As shown in fig 2 of their paper, the incidence of complications in the group with ALT >2–6x upper limit of normal (ULN) and the group with ALT >6xULN was still significantly higher compared . . . [Full text of this article]

M-F Yuen², C-L Lai²

² Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr M-F Yuen
Department of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong; mfyuen@hkucc.hku.hk

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