Chen S, et al. - A total of 976 primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) subjects who received ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) between January 2000 and December 2017 until their death, liver transplantation, or censored on April 1, 2018, by interview and review of medical records were analyzed by the researchers in order to recognize risk factors for transplant-free survival (TRS) in Chinese PBC subjects who received UDCA, with special focus on the influence of male sex and past hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. A total of 732 UDCA-treated subjects with required clinical and laboratory data were recruited. The overall 5-, 10-, and 15-year TRS rates, respectively, were 86.7%, 71.1%, and 59.2%. For male subjects and older subjects, survival was markedly worse. Independent predictors for TRS were male sex, cirrhosis, serum bilirubin, and serum albumin. No important variation in survival between cases with (n=167) and without (n=219) past HBV infection was noted. Therefore, male sex was correlated with shorter survival, whereas past HBV infection had no association with poorer outcomes, in this large Chinese cohort of UDCA-treated PBC cases.