Hosaka T, et al. - In patients with chronic hepatitis B after nucleos(t)ide analogue (NA) therapy, researchers examined if baseline and on-treatment serum hepatitis B core-related antigen (HBcrAg) levels can forecast hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) incidence. Study participants included 1,268 patients treated with NA therapy for >1 year. For this investigation, serum HBcrAg and hepatitis B surface antigen levels were measured at baseline and 1 year in all patients. One hundred thirteen patients (8.9%) developed HCC (10.3/1,000 person-years) during a median follow-up of 8.9 years. The results obtained from the retrospective cohort study indicate that patients with persistently high on-treatment HBcrAg levels were more likely to develop HCC, in spite of sustained viral suppression through long-term NA treatment.