Real-time quantitation of hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA in tumorous and surrounding tissue from patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Few data are available on the levels of HBV DNA in liver tissue of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. In this study, HBV DNA was quantitated by a TaqMan real-time PCR method and results were normalised to an endogenous reference gene. The assay could detect reproducibly viral sequences from over 107 to less than 50 copies/mg of liver DNA. The HBV DNA content in liver samples from 11 HBsAg-positive patients (median: 105 copies/mg of DNA) was significantly higher (P<0.001) compared to the viral DNA concentration detected in liver samples from 15 of 25 HBsAg-negative patients (median: 2.6102 copies/mg). A liver DNA amount 1 HBV DNA copy per cell was detected in half of tissue samples from HBsAg-positive patients, and in none from HBsAg-negative ones. Liver tissue HBVDNAcontent was significantly higher in anti- HCV-negative than in anti-HCV-positive cases (P<0.001). These results show that the quantitation of liver HBV DNA by real-time PCR can be useful to understand HBV state in hepatocellular carcinoma and viral interplay in patients with multiple viral infections.