Hepatitis B core‐related antigen predicts disease progression and hepatocellular carcinoma in hepatitis B e antigen‐negative chronic hepatitis B patients

The serum hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg) is considered a surrogate marker of the amount and activity of intrahepatic covalently closed circular DNA. This study aims to investigate the virological characteristics of HBcrAg in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients and to reveal the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk factors of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative patients.Hepatitis B core-related antigen was measured in 245 naive CHB...