Serum HBV DNA, HBeAg and intrahepatic distribution and morphology of HBsAg, HBcAg in relation to histopathologic changes in liver tissues were observed in 47 patients with hepatitis B. No significant difference was found between the positive rates of serum HBeAg and HBV DNA among different clinical types of hepatitis B (P>0.05). HBsAg was detected in the liver tissue of 76.6% patients with inclusion body, diffuse or membranous patterns (36.1%, 55.6% and 8.3% respectively). No significant difference was found among the different types of hepatitis B with HBsAg diffuse pattern in the liver tissues (P>0.05), which indicated that the intrahepatic expression HBsAg reflected only the replication of HBV DNA, and had no rela-tion to pathologic changes. HBcAg was found in hepatocytes of 27.7% patients with the mor-phology of nuclear and cytoplasmic patterns (38.5% and 61.5% respectively). The cytoplasmic pattern was mainly found in hepatocytes with active inflammation and the nuclear pattern in he-patocytes with mild inflammation, indicating a correlationship between HBcAg expression in hep-atocytes and active pathological changes.