Aim of the study: The quantitative hepatitis B surface antigen (qHBsAg) level indicates the amount of transcriptional activity of covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA) and integrated DNA in hepatocytes which plays a role in development of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and may help decide whether the treatment is necessary or not. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association between serum qHBsAg levels and viral replication and stage of liver fibrosis in treatment-naive CHB patients and to determine the role of qHBsAg levels in predicting when liver biopsy is necessary. Material and methods: 967 patients were included in the study. Because of refusal of liver biopsy the study was conducted on 123 patients. The association between qHBsAg levels with HBV DNA, a-fetoprotein, fibrosis stage and histology activity index was evaluated. Results: Of the patients, mean age was 48 ±11.2 years and 56.1% were male. We found that patients with HBV DNA ≥ 2000 IU/ml had a higher qHBsAg titer in comparison with HBV DNA < 2000 IU/ml. However, there was no relationship between qHBsAg titer and liver necroinflammation or fibrosis stage. Conclusions: Monitoring of qHBsAg together with HBV DNA may be helpful in CHB management. However, qHBsAg level does not provide knowledge about the timing of biopsy or the decision of CHB treatment.

Objectives: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is still a serious public health problem today. Many factors such as frequent blood transfusion, hemodialysis, sexual contact, sterilization in surgical procedures, etc. are involved in the transmission of hepatitis B virus. In our study, HBV seroprevalence was evaluated retrospectively in order to provide vaccination of anti-HBs negative patients and to determine HBV prophylaxis in patients with hematological malignancy. Methods: A total of 499 patients were included in the study. HBsAg, anti-HBs, anti-HBc IgG, anti-HDV, HBV DNA values were measured by ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, Liason, Diasorin, Italy) with Real-Time PCR (Cobas-Tagman, Roche Switzerland) and recorded. The obtained datas were evaluated by SPSS for Windows 15.00 statistical program. A value of p <0.05 was accepted as a statistical significance value. Results: HBsAg positivity was found to be 3.4% (n = 17) in all patients. Appropriate treatment regimens were started to patients with HBsAg (+). There were 166 (33.3%) patients with anti-HBs (+). One hundred nineteen (23.8%) patients had anti-HBc IgG (+), 40 (33.6%) of them were started a prophylactic treatment regimen. Anti-HBs positivity were reported after vaccination in 48 (16.8%) patients. Occult hepatitis have not been detected in patients with anti-HBc IgG positivity. Conclusions: As a result of this study, anti-HBs negative patients with hematological malignancies were vaccinated. Patients and physicians should be informed about vaccination and hepatitis serology controls of hematological malignancy and other immunosuppressed patients. Sensitivity in this context should be increased in terms of prophylactic treatments.