Effects of General Anesthesia on Changes of Serum Hepatitis B Virus-DNA Levels in Infected Patients Underwent Non-Hepatobiliary Minimally Invasive Surgery: A Pilot Observational Study

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of different general anesthesia methods on the changes of serum hepatitis B virus deoxyribonucleic acid (HBV-DNA) levels in the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infected patients. METHODS: This pilot prospective observational study was carried out from March 2021 to January 2022. Forty patients infected by HBV, who underwent non-hepatobiliary minimally invasive surgery, were allocated into an intravenous anesthesia group maintained with propofol (Group P, n = 20) and an inhalation anesthesia group maintained with sevoflurane (Group S, n = 20) by a random envelope method. Patient’s blood was drawn before operation (T(baseline)), at 24 hours (T(post 24hrs)) and 48 hours (T(post 48hrs)) after operation to detect the serum HBV-DNA levels and analyze the subset levels of T, B lymphocytes and NK cells (TBNK) in two groups. The serum HBV-DNA level was used as the major outcome, and it was analyzed by repeated-measures analysis of variance after natural logarithm transformation. RESULTS: In Group P and Group S, compared with the baseline, the serum HBV-DNA levels decreased significantly at T(post 24hrs) and T(post 48hrs), P<0.05. The total ratio of CD4(+)T cells and the ratio of CD4(+)T to CD8(+)T cells (CD4(+)/CD8(+)) were lower at T(post 24hrs), P<0.05, and the total ratio of B cells was significantly increased at T(post 24hrs), P<0.05. Compared with the values at T(post 24hrs), the total ratio of CD4(+) T cells, CD4(+)/CD8(+) T cells, and the total ratio of B cells were significantly increased at T(post 48hrs) in both groups, P<0.05. However, there were no statistical differences between Group P and Group S. CONCLUSION: The levels of serum HBV-DNA decreased within 48 hours after general anesthesia. There were no significant differences between the effects of intravenous and inhalation anesthesia on the serum HBV-DNA levels. TRIAL REGISTRATION: This study has been prospectively registered in the Clinical Trials Registry (NCT02038088, 1/28/2015).