Three new studies presented today at the International Liver Congress
2014 have helped clarify the optimal use of combination therapy with
peginterferon and nucleoside analogues (NUCs) to achieve the best
treatment outcomes in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB).
"Together these ground-breaking data will go a long way to influencing future CHB treatment
guidelines," said EASL's Educational Councillor Professor Cihan
Yurdaydin from the Department of Gastroenterology, University of Ankara,
Turkey.
In the first study , CHB patients who had failed on prior long-term
exposure to one of the nucleoside analogue (NUC) antivirals demonstrated
high rates of complete response and HBsAg loss when prescribed a
sequential combination of peginterferon and NUC.
In the second study , adding peginterferon to the nucleoside analogue
entecavir was shown to enhance response rates and viral decline in
HBeAg-positive CHB patients with compensated liver-disease, was
generally safe and well tolerated, and may facilitate the
discontinuation of entecavir.
Finally, data from a third study suggested that adding on a NUC for
six weeks to PegIFNalfa-2a does not enhance treatment response, with no
increase in HBeAg seroconversion rates beyond that achieved by
PegIFNα-2a alone after 24 weeks follow-up.
Read more... Labels: combination therapy, EASL 2014