Table 2.

Phases in the natural history of chronic hepatitis B (CHB).

	Spontaneous recovery	Immune tolerance	HBeAg positive CHB	HBeAg negative CHB	Inactive carrier
HBsAg	Absent	Present	Present	Present	Present
HBeAg	Absent	Present	Present	Absent	Absent
ALT	Normal	Normal	Elevated	Elevated (fluctuate)	Normal
HBV DNA	Undetectable in serum	High 108-1011C/ml	High 106-1010C/ml	Moderate (fluctuate) 103-108C/ml	Low <104C/ml

C/mL, Copies/mL. It is estimated that 1IU/ml is approximately 5.6 copies/mL.