To explore the oral microbiome diversity in patients with chronic hepatitis B undergoing nucleos(t)ide analogue (NUC) discontinuation and its association with treatment outcomes, highlighting its potential prognostic value.
Key Findings:
Patients with favorable outcomes exhibited higher alpha diversity and lower intersample variations in oral microbiome compared to those with unfavorable outcomes.
Specific Prevotella taxa inversely correlated with HBsAg, ALT, and AST levels, indicating their potential role as biomarkers.
Unfavorable outcomes associated with opportunistic taxa Haemophilus parainfluenzae and Porphyromonas catoniae.
A random forest model using microbial markers outperformed clinical markers in predicting outcomes (AUC 0.79 vs 0.66).
Interpretation:
Oral microbiome profiling may serve as a prognostic tool for virological outcomes in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients after NUC cessation, potentially guiding clinical decisions.
Limitations:
Small sample size of 18 patients limits generalizability and may affect the robustness of the findings.
Study focused solely on HBeAg-negative patients, excluding other populations which may have different microbiome profiles.
Conclusion:
Oral microbiome diversity may play a significant role in predicting treatment outcomes following NUC cessation in chronic hepatitis B patients.
by Mahin Ghorbani, Agne Kvedaraite, Khaled Al-Manei, Choon Boon Too, Susanne Cederberg, Asgeir Johannessen, Dag Henrik Reikvam, Davide Valentini, Christopher Maucourant, Niklas K Björkström, Soo Aleman, Margaret Sällberg Chen
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