Therapeutic evaluation of chronic aggressive nepatitis and its relation to the Australian antigen.

Twenty-seven patients with chronic aggressive hepatitis were treated with azathioprine and methylprednisolone for a long term ranging from 7 to 92 months. HbsAg was positive in 59% of cases. Of the 27 patients, 12 revealed healing between 7 and 82 months after therapy was started; seven patients revealed histological improvement with an interval in treatment between 12 and 58 months; two of them did not show histologic changes from 37 to 84 months and 6 developed cirrhosis at the 24th and 92nd months after treatment. It was noted that all the negative HbsAg either improved or healed, while the positive HbsAg achieved a favourable evolution in 50% of cases; the rest remained either in an histologically unchanged condition or developed cirrhosis. On considering the healed patients we may confidently state with 95% of certainty that treatment leads to normalization between 9% and 50% for the positive HbsAg patients and between 37% and 92% for the negative HbsAg patients.