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Joan Stephenson

JAMA. 1999;281:2175.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Conventional wisdom holds that when the body is infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV), the severe liver damage suffered by some patients is caused by cytotoxic T cells that seek out and destroy infected liver cells. Now, however, new research by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) scientists and grantees suggests that the immune system usually succeeds in purging most of the virus from the body by interfering with HBV's ability to reproduce—a gentler, liver-sparing strategy (Science. 1999;284:825-829).

The investigators found that more than 90% of HBV in chimps infected with the virus was eliminated before the immune system had mobilized cytotoxic T cells against infected liver cells. As a result, relatively few HBV-infected hepatocytes remained as tempting targets for immune system attack.

The finding of an anti-HBV mechanism independent of cytotoxic T cells may help explain why only some individuals infected with HBV—those with . . . [Full Text of this Article]