Can hepatitis B be detected by routine physical examination

The answer is not necessarily. The core depends on whether the routine physical examination package you do includes hepatitis B-related screening items. The basic routine physical examination for admission and employment that we usually talk about will most likely not detect hepatitis B.

As early as 2010, my country clearly issued regulations prohibiting the mandatory hepatitis B five-item (also known as two and a half) and hepatitis B virus DNA tests in physical examinations for admission and employment. The purpose is to eliminate employment and admission discrimination against hepatitis B virus carriers. Therefore, the default basic routine packages on the market generally only include liver function tests and do not add hepatitis B-related screening items.

Speaking of this, some people may ask, doesn’t liver function test reflect whether you have hepatitis B? You really can’t. Many people confuse liver function tests with hepatitis B screening. In fact, they are completely different. Liver function tests mainly use indicators such as alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase, which can only determine whether your liver has inflammatory damage. Just like you judge whether a fruit is bad by just touching the skin to see if it is soft, you cannot see whether there are moths hidden in the pulp. If the hepatitis B virus only lurks in the body and has not damaged liver cells, the liver function indicators will be completely normal. At this time, conventional liver function tests will not be able to detect the presence of the virus at all.

A while ago, I met a 24-year-old girl in the infectious disease clinic. She had passed the pre-examination for the public examination, but she still took time over the weekend to register. She said that her father was a hepatitis B cirrhosis patient. She was prescribed five tests for hepatitis B, and it was finally found that she had enough protective antibodies in her body. She finally breathed a sigh of relief and left. You see, if she only relied on the routine physical examination of the public examination, it would have been impossible for her to know her hepatitis B infection status.

Of course, this does not mean that hepatitis B cannot be detected in all routine physical examinations. If you take the initiative to ask for hepatitis B screening during your personal physical examination, or if you are in a special position such as blood product operation or living organ transplantation, and the unit requires additional testing, as long as you do five hepatitis B items or a viral DNA test, you will naturally be able to accurately detect whether there is hepatitis B infection.

In fact, even if you are really found to be a hepatitis B carrier, you don’t need to be too anxious. As long as your liver function is normal and your viral load is stable, you will not be infected when you eat, work, or even hug each other on a daily basis. You can work and live normally without putting too much psychological burden.