Background: steatosis is a common injury in chronic hepatitis C, but this association has not been sufficiently studied in chronic hepatitis B. aim: To evaluate the prevalence of hepatic steatosis in chronic hepatitis B and determine its association with various histologic, biochemical, virological, and metabolic diseases, and its effect on fibrosis and therapeutic response.
Methods: Our study was compiled 133 patients with chronic hepatitis B who received no antiviral therapy and who had a liver biopsy. Our patients were divided into 2 groups: 51 patients (38.3%) had steatosis (Group I), while 82 (61.7%) had no steatosis (Group II).
Results: In groupeI, the average age, BMI, cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose were significantly higher than the group without steatosis in univariate study (P <0.05). In multivariate analysis, only high BMI and hypertriglyceridemia were included.No significant difference between the two groups was observed in the rate of transaminases, HBeAg status, viral load (P> 0.05). Steatosis doesn't influence fibrosis stage and therapeutic response.
Conclusion: During chronic hepatitis B, steatosis appears to be the result of metabolic factors of the host rather than the effect of the virus. Hepatic steatosis does not seem to influence the progression of liver fibrosis, or therapeutic response, however, the role of steatosis should be better studied by prospective longitudinal clinical studies on large populations of patients.