I just ask my doctor. He basically said it is possible for serum HBsAg+ patients showing intrahepatic HBsAg-.
Studies show that the pattern of intrahepatic HBsAg and HBcAg distributions correlated with the stage of liver damage. See
http://synapse.koreamed.org/Synapse/Data/PDFData/0159GNL/gnl-2-166.pdf
Another research says the intrahepatic HBsAg predicts the treatment response of interferon+adv. It sounds to me that intrahepatic HBsAg correlated with serum HBsAg, since serum HBsAg is considered a predictor marker of interferon treatment response. See http://www.kenes.com/easl2010/Posters/Abstract914.htm
Another research found that there is >80% serum HBsAg positive patients showing intrahepatic HBsAg positive.
I found out that it is possible that immunohistochemical stain is less sensitive than radioimmunology test in serum. That would imply that the intrahepatic hbsag quantity is low. Without hbsag quantitative tests (not available in US), I may be able to draw a conclusion that my hbsag quantitative should be low enough to make immunohistochemical stain insensitive. This is just a guess. I will discuss with my doctor when I can get a hold of him.
I checked online info. It seems to me that immunohistochemical stain of biopsy sample is more accurate way to confirm hbv infection. Very strange that hbsag was not detected in my case. S it possible that they have messed up the sample? I need to rethink the validity of this report.
you have a perfectly healthy liver more than everage population with fat/meat diets, it was possible to avoid a therapy with tnf and wait for the new interferon lamda to be available, in cases like yours nucs are not very indicated and immune modulator would have been a better try to eradicate hbv
the only result of tnf treatment is liver cancer prevention since your hbvdna was not very low