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Background: Histopathologic assessment of liver tissue is an essential step in management and follow-up of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) while inter- and intra-observer variations limit the accuracy of these assessments., Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the inter- and intra-observer reproducibility of histopathologic assessment of liver biopsies based on NAFLD activity score (NAS) scoring system., Materials and Methods: The anonymous liver biopsy samples of 100 consecutive NAFLD suspected adults were randomly assigned to four pathologists. Then, the samples were randomly reassigned to the pathologists for the second time in a way that each sample would be evaluated by two different pathologists. Biopsies were revisited by their first evaluator after two months. The results were reported based on NAS scoring system., Results: Inter-observer agreement of the pathology scores based on NAS scoring system was acceptable for steatosis, lobular inflammation, and fibrosis, but not for hepatocyte ballooning. The intra-observer agreement was acceptable in all scales, with lowest intra-class correlation observed for lobular inflammation., Conclusions: NAS scoring system has good overall inter- and intra-observer agreement, but more attention should be given to defining the hepatocyte ballooning and lobular inflammation, and training the pathologists to improve the accuracy of pathology reports.

Background: The presence of an infected family member significantly increases the risk of HBV transmission, but many socio-demographic and viral characteristics of family members affect the transmission rate., Objectives: In this study, we have used data mining techniques to investigate the impact of different variables in intrafamilial transmission of HBV infection., Patients and Methods: demographic information, viral markers, and medical history of 330 patients with chronic hepatitis B and their offspring attending a referral center in Tehran were collected. Data-mining techniques were administered to detect patterns., Results: The overall transmission rate was 15.7% (5.4% and 27.3% for male and female index cases respectively). In female patients, HBe Ag positively affected the transmission rate (49% vs. 23.4%). There was a dominant change in transmission rate of female patients with negative results for Hbe Ag with HDV coinfection, where the transmission rate changed from 25% in patients with negative results for HDV Ab to 5% in those with positive results. In Hbe Ag negative male index cases, the transmission rate was 1.3% in cases with positive results for HDV Ab compared to 7% in those with negative findings. The overall transmission rate was statistically different between patients with positive and negative results for HDV Ab (P = 0.016)., Conclusions: There is a minor but consistent pattern change in the presence of HDV infection which reduces familial transmission of HBV, especially in female patients with negative results for HBe Ag.