Serum M2BPGi level is a novel predictive biomarker for the responses to pegylated interferon-α treatment in HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B patients.

Serum Mac-2-binding protein glycosylation isomer (M2BPGi) level was found to be a useful prognostic marker for hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients treated with nucleoside/nucleotide analogs (NUCs) therapy, and the aim of our study is to evaluate the clinical implementation of M2BPGi level in the prediction of antiviral responses to pegylated-interferon- (PEG-IFN-) treatment in HBeAg-positive CHB patients. Ninety-six CHB patients who received PEG-IFN- treatment for at least 48 weeks were recruited. The serum M2BPGi, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), HBeAg, and HBV DNA levels at baseline, weeks 4, 12, and 24 after PEG-IFN- treatment were determined and their associations with antiviral responses were evaluated and the virological response (VR) rate and serological response (SR) rate after 48 weeks of treatment were 65.6% and 35.4%, respectively. Baseline serum M2BPGi level was significantly different between VR and non-VR (P=0.002) or SR and non-SR groups (P=0.012). Multivariate analyses suggested that baseline serum M2BPGi level was independently associated with VR and SR of PEG-IFN- treatment at week 48. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of baseline M2BPGi was 0.682 in predicting VR, which was superior to HBsAg (AUC=0.566) or HBV DNA (AUC=0.567). The AUC of baseline M2BPGi in predicting SR was 0.655, which was also higher than that of HBsAg (AUC=0.548) or HBV DNA (AUC=0.583). These results suggested that baseline serum M2BPGi level was a novel predictor of VR and SR for PEG-IFN- treatment in HBeAg-positive CHB patients.