It is already well known that there are relatively many patients in Korea who have hepatitis B surface antigen. Anesthesiologists are often put into such a dilemma that they can't decide definitely whether going on procedures or not for HBsAg positive patients with or without mildly impaired liver function. The effects of enflurane, isoflurane and regional anesthesia on the liver function were compared in 85 patients with hepatitis B surface antigen. All the patients were randomly divided into 3 groups of enflurane(n=8), isoflurane(n=60) and regional anesthesia(n=17), and subdivided into 4 groups according to the preoperative value of liver functuion test and the presence of hepatitis B e antigen. Liver function tests were performed preoperatively, and on the 1st, 3rd and 7th, days postoperatively. Postoperative values of liver function tests were compared to preoperative ones within each group, and were also compared between groups. The results showed no significant differences between groups of hepatitis B eantigen positive and hepatitis B e antigen negative, but showed slight differences between anesthetics or anesthetic methads. In conclusion, anesthetic management of hepatitis B surface antigen positive patients could be performed without regard to the presence of hepatitis B e antigen. However, regional anesthesia seemed to be better than inhalation anesthesia in patients with hepatitis B surface antigen.