Why carry out this study?

Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) has a dynamic disease process and acute decompensation (AD) on hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related cirrhosis often develops into acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF).

At present, little is known about warning biomarkers for the occurrence and progression of ACLF among HBV cirrhosis patients with AD.

What was learned from the study?

The decrease in serum complement component 3 (C3) levels paralleled the severity of diseases related to HBV (P < 0.05). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (auROC) for serum C3 levels that predicted the development of ACLF in patients with decompensated cirrhosis was 0.90, which had sensitivity and specificity of 88.2% and 88.7%, respectively. A similar result was observed in the validation set (auROC = 0.86).

Serum C3 levels are valuable in assessing the severity of CHB-related stages. Low C3 levels signifies the development of ACLF in patients with decompensated cirrhosis.