Comparison of hepatitis B viral loads and viral antigen levels in child-bearing age women with and without pregnancy

Table 1 Demographic and virological characteristics in 727 HBsAg-positive pregnant women and women with different reproductive histories

	Total (n = 727)	Nullipara (n = 158)	Pregnancy (n = 214)	Puerperant, 7–12 months postpartum (n = 170)	Puerperant, 2–5 years postpartum (n = 185)	p
Age (year)	26.0 (22.0–32.4)	25.0 (22.0–30.0)	25.3 (22.7–30.2)	26.2 (23.6–31.5)^a	29.3 (24.0–32.4)^{a, b}	< 0.05
Positive HBeAg (%)	240 (33.0)	54 (34.2)	72 (33.6%)	60 (35.3)	54 (29.2)	0.624
HBV DNA, log IU/ml (min-max)	3.1 (1.4–9.2)	3.0 (1.4–9.0)	3.1 (1.6–8.9)	3.2 (1.5–9.2)	3.1 (1.4–9.1)	0.543
HBsAg, log IU/ml (min-max)	3.7 (0.9–5.9)	3.4 (0.9–5.0)	3.7 (0.9–5.9)	3.8 (1.0–5.4)	3.5 (1.3–5.4)	0.072
Genotype^c
B (%)	303 (44.2)	59 (44.4)	70 (33.5)^d	77 (46.7)	97 (54.2)	0.001
C (%)	383 (55.8)	74 (55.6)	139 (66.5)^d	88 (53.3)	82 (45.8)	0.001

The units of numbers in the parentheses are indicated in the first column
HBeAg hepatitis B e antigen, HBsAg hepatitis B surface antigen, HBV hepatitis B virus
^ap < 0.05 compared with the age of nulliparas and pregnant women
^bp < 0.05 compared with puerperant women 7–12 months postpartum
^cHBV genotype was not determined in 38 women because of failure in the amplification of HBV DNA, including 24 nulliparas, 4 pregnant women, 5 puerperants 7–12 months postpartum and 5 puerperants 2–5 years postpartum. Additionally, there were two women infected with genotype D and one woman infected with genotype G. Since the numbers for genotypes D and G were too low to be meaningfully compared, we did not include these three women in the analysis
^dp = 0.043, 0.010, and < 0.001 compared with the frequencies of genotypes B and C in nullipara group, puerperant 7–12 months postpartum and puerperant 2–5 years postpartum respectively. The differences between any other groups had no statistical significance (all p > 0.05)

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