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Dual therapy for chronic hepatitis B virus

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Abstract

Chronic hepatitis B virus infection is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Antiviral therapy should target patients who are at a substantial risk of developing liver disease because the response to treatment is often suboptimal and long-term monotherapy is invariably associated with the development of resistance. Currently, there are six agents approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B: interferon alfa-2b, peginterferon alfa-2a, lamivudine, adefovir, entecavir, and telbivudine. The currently available monotherapy regimens have limited efficacy and result in suboptimal responses in many patients with chronic hepatitis B. Various studies have evaluated different combination regimens for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, but no combined regimen has been proven superior to monotherapy in achieving sustained off-treatment viral suppression. Combination therapy has the advantage of a reduced rate of antiviral drug resistance, but this relative benefit over drugs with a low risk of antiviral drug resistance when used as monotherapy requires further comparative study.

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  1. Division of Liver Diseases, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L Levy Place, Box 1123, New York, NY, 10029, USA

    Douglas Dieterich

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  1. Hussien Elsiesy
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  2. Douglas Dieterich
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Correspondence to Douglas Dieterich.

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Elsiesy, H., Dieterich, D. Dual therapy for chronic hepatitis B virus. Curr hepatitis rep 7, 33–39 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11901-008-0019-x

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