Complications
The most common complication of hepatitis B is cirrhosis, which results from continued hepatic injury and inflammation. It usually appears in chronic diseases and generally after a few years. But every patient has a different presentation of the disease. However, the most feared complication is hepatocellular carcinoma or liver cancer.
Surveillance for liver cancer is usually reserved for hepatitis B patients who developed cirrhosis. It is also common in patients with a coinfection of hepatitis virus B and C. Patients with cirrhosis and hepatitis B have a 2% chance of liver cancer. This number is raised to 6.4% when patients have a dual infection of hepatitis B and hepatitis C. There is also a higher rate of cirrhosis and cancer in cases of coinfection with the hepatitis D virus. In these cases, the mortality rate rises 2-fold, and the disease is much more aggressive.
