Li H, et al. - Researchers investigated the association between baseline intra-patient viral diversity and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) decline following PEGylated interferon-alpha (Peg-IFN-α) therapy in patients with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB). Baseline intra-patient small hepatitis B surface protein (SHBs) diversity was inverse to HBsAg decline in the patients receiving Peg-IFN-α monotherapy. Furthermore, the main sources of the higher SHBs diversity included more sequence variations within the “a” determinant upstream flanking region and the first loop of the “a” determinant.