Fig. 3

Elevated pre-treatment IL-18 level was associated with HBeAg SR. The relative importance of the top 20 important cytokines in the overall classification. The vertical axes represent the arrangement of importance among the cytokines according to the Gini scores. The horizontal axes represent the average decrease in classification accuracy as the Gini scores. A The receiver operating curve of IL-18 for differentiating patients with HBeAg SR and NSR. B The comparison of serum IL-18 levels in patients with HBeAg SR and NSR. Data were analyzed by the Mann-Whitney U test. C The binary logistic regression analysis (HBeAg SR vs HBeAg NSR) including IL-18(≥50 pg/ml vs < 50 pg/ml), age(<6y vs ≥ 6y), drug (pegylated interferon vs entecavir), HBsAg (high vs low) and ALT (high vs low). SR:serological response; NSR:without serological response; AUC: area under the curve; OR: odds ratio; CI: confidence interval; ALT: alanine aminotransferase; HBsAg: hepatitis B surface antigen