Statistics Data were first assessed for normality and exactly log transformed where appropriate. Quantitative variant were expressed as mean �� standard deviation (SD) or median with range once nonnormal distribution was found. Student t test or Mann-Whitney U-test was further applied. For qualitative variant, percentages or frequencies were used and X2 test was chosen for further comparison. Binary logistic regression using forward-conditional method was further applied to determine significant variables from univariate analysis. Hepatic steatosis and virological response were appointed as dependent variables and categorized into binary outcomes as absent or present, respectively. SPSS 17.0 was used for statistical analysis through the whole process and p<0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results General characteristics of subjects Totally 267 patents were selected in this study and 54 patients were excluded from final analysis, for the reasons of primary non-response, significant side effect, virological breakthrough, loss of follow-up and so on (Figure 1). Considering the relatively high exclusion rate, we compared baseline demographic, anthropometric and laboratory characteristics between those included and excluded patients. As shown in Table 1, compared with included patients, those excluded patients had significantly lower ALT level (147.38��30.15 vs 183.56��51.02, p=0.03) but higher ratio of hepatic steatosis (46.3% vs 30.6%, p=0.04). The other parameters of NAFLD, including BMI, TG, waist circumference and obesity, also showed increased tendency but did not reach statistical significance.

Figure 1 Schematic representation of the selection process for CHB patients receiving initial antiviral therapy. Table 1 Baseline demographic, anthropometric, clinical and laboratory characteristics of included and excluded patients. All patients entering final analysis were Chinese with average age of 37.3 y, ranging from 19 y to 64 y. The percentage of male was 55.4% and the mean BMI was 25.76 Kg/m2. The prevalence of obesity, overweight, DM and hypertension were 13.6%, 36.6%, 6.1% and 15.0%, respectively. The mean waist circumference, ALT, AST, ALP, GGT, TG, Chol, FBG and Uric acid levels were 84.21 cm, 183.56 U/L, 54.63 U/L, 72.65 U/L, 46.39 U/L, 1.23 mmol/L, 4.37 mmol/L, 5.06 mmol/L and 377.89 ��mol/L, respectively. The overall percentage of hepatic steatosis was 30.5% (65/271) and the prevalence of HBeAg positive was 62.4%. Patients’ HBV-DNA level was varied and nonnormal distributed, with median of 4.51 Cilengitide * 106 copies/mL. Association between steatosis and host or viral factors As shown in Table 2, the distribution of age, sex and family history of HBV infection were not significantly different.