A variety of hepatitis B virus (HBV) specific markers have been proposed for the diagnostic and prognostic assessments of patients with HBV infection. So, serum HBV viron markers (HBV DNA, DNA polymerase), expression of HBc Ag and HBs Ag in liver, free HBV DNA in liver and serum HBe Ag tend to coexist in the same patient and are generally considered to be markers of active viral replication. But the correlation of the above markers with histologic assessment has yielded conflicting results. In some studies, tissue HBs Ag or HBc Ag has been demonstrated in liver of some patients who do not have serum HBs Ag detectable by RIA method. In this report, liver specimens from 35 human subjects with normal liver function who complained nonspecific symptom and hepatic area tenderness by punch and had abnormal finding in liver scan were studied for the detection of tissue distribution of two HBV antigenic markers and histologic change as well as serum HBV viron markers. The results were as follows: 1) 14 of the 35 (40%) liver specimens with normal liver function showed abnormal histopathologic changes such as fatty change or chronic persistent hepatitis. 2) Among the 35 patients, only 1 (2.9%) showed hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) positive in hepatocytes. 3) 11 of the 35 (31.4%) patients had HBs Ag positive in hepatocytes. 6 of the 11 HBs Ag positive patients had normal liver and 7 of the 11 had HBs Ag negative in serum. 4) The distribution of HBsAg in hepatocytes could be classified as diffuse type (72.8%), inclusion type (18.2%) and membranous type (9%). 5) On follow-up exam, one of the two HBs Ag postivie in hepatocyte had changes in liver function test.