Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome Patterns and Their Association with Hepatitis B Surface Antigen Levels during the Natural History of Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Table 1

Criteria of the classification of phases in the natural history of CHB.

Phase	ALT in U/L	HBeAg status	HBV DNA in IU/mL	Liver imaging
ITP	< ULN	+	> 10^7	normal
ICP	≥ 2 × ULN	+	> 2000	nonHC and nonPLC
LRP	< ULN	-	< 2000	normal
RAP	≥ 2 × ULN	-	> 2000	nonHC and nonPLC
HC	any	+/-	any	cirrhosis
PLC	any	+/-	any	PLC

Patients with ALT < 2 × ULN but no significant inflammation (G ≤ 1) in liver biopsy would be put into ITP. Patients with ALT > 1.5–2 × ULN but significant inflammation (G ≥ 2) in liver biopsy would be put into ICP. Patients with ALT < 2 × ULN, but whose ALT elevations were not HBV-associated, would be put into LRA. The normal ALT was 40 U/L. Every patient in RAP had at least one recorded event of hepatitis activity, in order to avoid patients that belong in ICP with HBV precore mutation in G1896A from being mistakenly categorized into RAP. ALT: alanine aminotransferase; HBV DNA: hepatitis B virus DNA; HBeAg: hepatitis B e antigen; HC: hepatic cirrhosis; ICP: immune clearance phase; ITP: immune tolerance phase; LRP: low or nonreplication phase; PLC: primary liver cancer; RAP: reactive phase; ULN: upper limit of normal. “-”: negative; “+”: positive.