Objective: To study the expression of CTGF in patients with chronic liver disease induced by hepatitis B virus, and to explore the relationship among CTGF and hepatic fibrosis and inflammation.Background: The hepatic fibrosis is an important pathological process after liver damage caused by a variety of reasons. At present, the ways to diagnose liver fibrosis include histopathological diagnosis, hematology diagnosis and imaging diagnosis. Histopathology is the gold standard for the diagnosis of liver fibrosis, but it is an invasive method, can not dynamicly monitor, and it is difficult to repeat, the above disadvantages limit the widespread application of it. It is known that CTGF is an important downstream medium of TGF-βand that CTGF is expressed in hepatocytes, HSCs, portal fibroblasts and bile duct epithelial cells. CTGF plays an important role in the occurrence of liver fibrosis. It has been shown that CTGF is over-expressed in hepatic fibrosis. CTGF can be released out of the cells, and reach to the circulation, therefore, the concentration of CTGF in serum has become a new approach to evaluate liver fibrosis. Recent studies have shown that levels of CTGF in chronic liver diseases was significantly higher than that in healthy, and the levels of CTGF is related with the activity of liver fibrosis. It is therefore thought that detecting serum levels of CTGF might be used to evaluate the liver fibrosis.Methods: Collect serum of patients with chronic hepatitis B, who were from outpatients or hospitalized in First Hospital of Jilin University from June, 2008 to April, 2009 (all patients with HBsAg positive), the total number of the patients is 184. Patients with lung disease, kidney disease, scleroderma, systemic lupus erythematosus, diabetes, high blood pressure and liver disease induced by other causes were removed. The blood was collected in the early morning when the patients were fasting. The blood collected was stored at -80℃. There are 29 HBV carriers, 14 males, 15 females; 89 patients with chronic hepatitis B, 56 males, 33 females, of whom 32 patients with mild hepatitis, 30 with moderate hepatitis, 27 with severe hepatitis; 66 patients with liver cirrhosis, 44 males and 22 females, of whom 35 were active, 31 were static. 23 patients were received for liver biopsy, and 1 patient was in hepatic fibrosis at stage 0, 4 patients at stage 1, 8 patients at stage 2, 7 patients at stage 3, 3 patients at stage 4. 30 healthy persons were as a normal control in this study, of whom, 18 are males, 12 are females. The liver puncture was performed with ultrasound-guided by professional practitioners in First hospital of Jilin University. The pathological diagnosis of liver biopsy were made by three doctors. The levels of CTGF, Collagen I and Collagen III in serum in patients and normal control were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results: Compared with control group, CTGF levels were significantly increased in patients with chronic hepatitis B (P0.05). Severe chronic hepatitis was with a highest level of CTGF among three groups of chronic hepatitis B. The difference of CTGF levels between light and moderate groups was significant different (P0.05). Comparision between static and active liver cirrhosis , the difference of CTGF levels was significant (P0.05). Further more, positive correlations between the levels of ColⅠ, Col III and the stage of fibrosis were also found (r=0.887, P<0.05; r=0.549, P<0.05).Conclusion:1. The serum levels of CTGF in patients with Chronic hepatitis B significantly increased with the exacerbations, the level of CTGF in severe chronic hepatitis was the highest.2. The serum levels of CTGF in patients with Chronic hepatitis B were positively correlated with CoⅠ, CoⅢand the stage of liver fibrosis.3. There was no significant correlation between CTGF levels and the grade of liver inflammation in patients with Chronic hepatitis B.