Is the Current Recommended Dose of Entecavir Too Low for Some Patients?

— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate

Turkish researchers analyzed whether the current daily recommended dose of the antiviral entecavir was too low, given that some patients failed to respond to the antiviral and achieve undetectable viral loads after one year of treatment.

According to their report in the May issue of the journal Drug Design, Development and Therapy, they followed 23 HBeAg-positive and 36 HBeAg-negative patients who were treated with the standard dose of entecavir (0.5 mg pill daily) for one year.

Those who still had detectable viral load after one year either continued on the 0.5 mg dose or received a higher, 1 mg daily dose for three years.

The group that continued on the 0.5 mg pill included 20 HBeAg-negative and 12 HBeAg-positive patients. The higher-dose entecavir group included 16 HBeAg-negative and 11 HBeAg-positive patients.

The higher-dose group had more effective suppression of viral load. Both groups had similar rates of HBeAg loss (58% and 63% for group 1 and group 2, respectively) and normal alanine transaminase (ALT) rates, which indicate no liver damage.

Increasing entecavir dose from 0.5 mg to 1 mg after one year of treatment may lead to more effective suppression of viral load, the Turkish researchers suggested.

Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24936126


HBV Journal Review
July 1, 2014, Vol 11, no 7
by Christine M. Kukka

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