This was used to investigate associations between clinical, demographic or histology data including age, sex, albumin, bilirubin, ALT, PT, HBeAg/anti-HBe status, HBV-DNA status, HBsAg titre, the presence of interface hepatitis, portal tract inflammation, lobular inflammation, steatosis, fibrosis stage, hepatocyte expression of HBsAg/HBcAg with data derived from Q-FISH including the number of telomeres, mean telomere length, maximum telomere length and nuclear area. The gene discussed is ALB; the disease is steatosis.