Clinical utility of hepatitis B surface antigen kinetics in treatment-naïve chronic hepatitis B patients during long-term entecavir therapy

Table 6 Univariate and multivariate analyses of factors associated with new hepatocellular carcinoma development

Factors		Univariate analysis			Multivariate analysis
		HR	95%CI	P value	HR	95%CI	P value
Sex (female vs male)		0.42	0.09-1.90	0.26	0.31	0.05-1.94	0.21
Age (yr)		1.08	1.03-1.13	0.001	1.05	0.99-1.12	0.12
HBeAg (positive vs negative)		0.44	0.10-1.97	0.28	0.91	0.14-6.00	0.92
Cirrhosis (yes vs no)		11.32	3.11-41.24	< 0.001	13.02	2.00-84.99	0.007
HBV genotype (B vs C)1		0.58	0.18-1.90	0.37	0.63	0.12-3.28	0.58
ALT (× ULN)		1.02	0.95-1.09	0.55	1.06	0.97-1.16	0.20
HBV DNA (log IU/mL)		0.90	0.66-1.22	0.48	1.06	0.59-1.91	0.84
HBsAg (log IU/mL)		0.80	0.41-1.55	0.51	0.98	0.29-3.36	0.97

¹Only two patients (one HBeAg-positive and one HBeAg-negative cirrhotic) had mixed HBV genotype B and C infection; therefore, a genotype B + C subset was not included in this analysis. ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; CI: Confidence interval; HR: Hazard ratio; HBeAg: Hepatitis B e antigen; HBsAg: Hepatitis B surface antigen; HBV: Hepatitis B virus; HCC: Hepatocellular carcinoma; ULN: Upper limit of normal.