The main purpose of this study was to explore clinical significance of serum antinuclear antibody (ANA) profiling in patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, and to provide references for clinical diagnosis and treatment efficacy.

We retrospectively analyzed the positive rate of ANAs in 1875 cases of HBV, 563 cases of HCV, and 488 healthy controls (HC). Patients with viral hepatitis infection were divided into two subgroups according to ANA results. Demographic data, liver function indexes and immunoglobulin levels of 456 patients were completed collected and analyzed.

The ANA positive rate was 18.40% in HBV patients, 11.90% in HCV patients, and 4.10% in HC patients, and there was a significant difference in ANAs positivity between the viral hepatitis group and healthy controls (P<0.05). The antibodies that showed a significant difference (P<0.05) in the positive rate of ANAs compared with HC in the viral hepatitis group were: anti-dsDNA antibodies, anti-nucleosome antibodies, anti-histone antibodies, anti-SSA/Ro60 antibodies, anti-SSA/Ro52 antibodies, anti-SSB antibody, anti-AMA-M2 antibody, and anti-CENP-B antibody. The most frequent antibody in viral hepatitis was anti-SSA/Ro52 antibody. There were more females in patients with viral hepatitis having ANA positivity (P<0.05). AST, ALT, GGT and TBI were higher in the ANAs-positive group and albumin ALB levels were lower in the negative group, and the differences were significant (P<0.01). The IgG level was significant higher in the ANAs-positive group than in the negative group (P<0.01).

The detection of multiple ANA profiles in the serum of viral liver disease patients helps .to understand the immune status of the organism and has a certain guiding effect on the clinical diagnosis and regression of the disease.