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The treatment target for chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) seroclearance. However, the strength of the association between HBsAg seroclearance and improvement in long-term clinical outcomes is unclear.
To address this issue, researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis, identifying 28 studies that assessed outcomes in nearly 190,000 HBV-infected patients with recorded HBsAg status. Long-term outcomes studied included hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), hepatic decompensation, liver transplantation, and all-cause mortality. In the meta-analysis, random effects modeling was performed to calculate rate ratios.
During nearly 1.5 million person-years of follow-up, the incidence of any clini…