BACKGROUND AND AIM Recently, the role of albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) score in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) has not been well-understood. We aimed to investigate the association of ALBI score with natural history of chronic HBV infection and treatment response of CHB patients. METHODS The ALBI score in a cohort of 849 individuals including 721 chronic HBV-infected patients naïve to anti-HBV treatment in different phases and 128 healthy controls were estimated. Additionally, the dynamic changes of ALBI score of 243 hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive CHB patients treated with pegylated interferon-alpha (PEG-IFN-α) or nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) were tested for 72 weeks. RESULTS ALBI score differed among phases, with the highest score in HBeAg-positive CHB patients, followed by HBeAg-negative CHB patients, HBeAg-positive chronic HBV infection, and HBeAg-negative chronic HBV infection. Besides, CHB patients harbouring high baseline ALBI score exhibited a relatively stronger therapeutic response to PEG-IFN-α or NAs. Moreover, the rate of HBeAg and HBsAg loss in patients with ALBI grade 2 was persistently higher than that in patients with ALBI grade 1 throughout the course of treatment. Furthermore, ALBI score was an independent predictor of sustained response achievement. The combined use of ALBI score, HBeAg and ALT could enhance the predictive value of treatment response. CONCLUSIONS ALBI score differed significantly across the natural course of chronic HBV infection and was correlated with PEG-IFN-α and NAs treatment response in HBeAg-positive CHB patients, which suggested that ALBI score could be useful as an auxiliary clinical factor to determine the initiation of therapy and predict stronger antiviral treatment response.

中文翻译：

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白蛋白-胆红素评分与慢性乙型肝炎患者对聚乙二醇化干扰素和核苷类似物的反应有关。

背景与目的近年来，白蛋白-胆红素（ALBI）评分在慢性乙型肝炎（CHB）中的作用尚未得到很好的理解。我们旨在调查ALBI评分与慢性HBV感染的自然病史和CHB患者的治疗反应之间的关系。方法估算了849名患者的ALBI评分，其中包括721名在不同阶段未接受抗HBV治疗的慢性HBV感染患者和128名健康对照者。此外，对接受聚乙二醇干扰素-α（PEG-IFN-α）或核苷酸（t）-ide类似物（NAs）治疗的243名乙型肝炎e抗原（HBeAg）阳性CHB患者的ALBI评分进行了动态测试，持续72周。结果ALBI评分在各个阶段之间存在差异，在HBeAg阳性CHB患者中得分最高，其次是HBeAg阴性CHB患者，HBeAg阳性慢性HBV感染，和HBeAg阴性的慢性HBV感染。此外，基线ALBI评分较高的CHB患者对PEG-IFN-α或NAs的治疗反应相对较强。此外，在整个治疗过程中，ALBI 2级患者的HBeAg和HBsAg丢失率持续高于ALBI 1级患者。此外，ALBI评分是持续反应成就的独立预测因子。ALBI评分，HBeAg和ALT的联合使用可以提高治疗反应的预测价值。结论ALBI评分在慢性HBV感染的自然过程中存在显着差异，并且与HBeAg阳性CHB患者的PEG-IFN-α和NAs治疗反应相关，