Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of serum interferon-γ (IFN-γ), interleukin-4 (IL-4) and IL-10 levels on maternal-infant transmission of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in HBsAg positive women. Methods 126 pregnant women with serum HBsAg positive and 55 healthy pregnant women were recruited in our hospital from August 2017 through July 2019, and IFN-γ, IL-4 and IL-10 levels in women’s sera and in neonatal umbilical vein blood were assayed by ELISA. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and multivariate Logistic regression model were applied to analyze the risk factors affecting HBV mother-to-child transmission. Results Out of our series, the mother-to-child transmission occurred in 15 cases, and 30 cases from 111 women without mother-to-child transmission were selected for control; serum level of IFN-γ in intrauterine infection group was (681.3±141.6) pg/ml, and serum level of IL-10 was (62.3±11.4) pg/ml, both significantly lower than in intrauterine non-transmited group or in the control, while serum IL-4 level was (68.1±22.9) ng/L, which was significantly higher than in women without intrauterine transmission or in healthy women; newborn umbilical vein blood cytokine levels in the three groups were not significantly different (P>0.05); ROC showed that the AUC for predicting mother-to-infant transmission by serum IFNγ levels in pregnant women was 0.877 (95%CI:0.810-0.945),the cut-off value was ≤782.36 pg/ml, the diagnostic sensitivity was 100.0%, and the specificity was 69.4%. Conclusion There is a immune function regulation disorders in pregnant women with HBV infection and the detection of serum IFNγ, IL-4 and IL-10 levels might be used as an indicator to evaluate the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HBV, and provide information for clinical prevention and treatment measures.

Key words: Hepatitis B, Mother-to-child transmission, Interferon-gamma, Interleukin-4, Interleukin-10, Intrauterine infection