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Objective: To investigate the risk factors for the short-term outcome of patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), and to establish a risk model for predicting the short-term outcome of these patients., Methods: A total of 338 patients with HBV-related ACLF who were admitted to 30 Lod hospital of PLA hospital from January 2010 to January 2014 were enrolled, and a prospective clinical follow-up was performed for them. Multivariate logistic regression was used to determine the risk factors for short-term (12 weeks) outcome, the predictive model with logistic regression equation was established, and the predictive value of this model was evaluated., Results: The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that age, a family history of hepatitis B, hepatic encephalopathy (HE), hepatorenal syndrome (HRS), white blood cell (WBC), platelet (PLT), international normalized ratio (INR), total bilirubin (TBil), total bile acid (TBA), creatinine, Na, HBV DNA, and HBeAg were the independent risk factors for the short-term outcome of these patients. Logistic(p) = -4.466 + 1.192 age + 1.631 family history of hepatitis B + 1.091 HE + 1.631 HRS + 1.208 WBC -1.487 PLT + 1.092 INR + 1.446 TBil + 1.608 TBA -1.101 CHE + 1.279 CRE -1.713 Na + 1.032 HBV DNA + 0.833 HBeAg. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the model for the prediction of short-term outcome was 0.930, the cut-off value was 3.16, the sensitivity was 0.860, and the specificity was 0.871. With the increasing scores of the equation, the mortality of patients tended to increase gradually., Conclusion: Age, a family history of hepatitis B, HE, HRS, WBC, PLT, INR, TBil, TBA, CHE, CRE, Na, HBV DNA, and HBeAg are the independent risk factors for the short-term outcome of patients with HBV-related ACLF. The model for predicting short-term outcome established on the basis of independent risk factors has a better clinical value in guiding clinical therapy.

Hepatitis B virus ( HBV) infection is one of the major causes of chronic liver inflammation. Tim-3 acts as a negative regulatory molecule and plays a critical role in immune tolerance. In the current study, we investigated Tim-3 expression on peripheral monocytes and CD3+ CD16/ CD56+ natural killer like T ( NKT-like) cells in chronic hepatitis B ( CHB) patients. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated from 52 CHB patients and 60 healthy controls. Tim-3+ CD14+ cells and Tim-3+ CD3+ CD16/ CD56+ cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. Results showed that expression of Tim-3 was significantly increased on both the monocytes and NKT-like cells in CHB patients than in controls ( P = 0.002 and P < 0.001, respectively). Tim-3 levels on monocytes and NKT-like cells were further upregulated in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure ( ACLF). In addition, we assessed the correlation of Tim-3 expression with levels of alanine aminotransferase ( ALT) and tumor necrosis factor alpha ( TNF-α). Data revealed that Tim-3 expression on both monocytes and NKT-like cells was positively correlated with level of ALT ( r = 0.59, P < 0.001, and r = 0.60, P < 0.001, respectively), whereas Tim-3 expression on NKT-like cells was negatively correlated with serum level of TNF-α ( r = −0.54, P < 0.001) in CHB patients. Our results suggest that Tim-3 may play important roles in the pathogenesis of CHB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]