Blood T and B cells in patients with acute viral hepatitis A, B and non-A non-B.

We studied the blood distribution of T and B cells in relation to the etiology and the course of the hepatitis process, in 61 consecutive patients with acute viral hepatitis (AVH). Patients with acute viral hepatitis B showed a significant increase in total T, active T and SmIg cells, lasting the first two weeks of disease. These alterations disappeared in patients with resolving hepatitis. SmIg cells remained persistently elevated in the blood of three patients, who developed chronic hepatitis B. In patients with other types of viral hepatitis, lymphocytes were unaltered, with the exception of a transitory increase in SmIg cells, during the convalescence phase of hepatitis A. The finding that lymphocytes were activated exclusively in patients with acute hepatitis B, but not in those with other types of hepatitis, suggests that the mechanisms of liver injury in hepatitis B may differ from those involved in the pathogenesis of hepatitis A and nAnB.