— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate
In one of the largest studies of its kind, a group of international
researchers have confirmed that five years of treatment with the potent
antiviral tenofovir (Viread) in patients with liver scarring
(cirrhosis) dramatically improved their liver health and survival.
According to the study, published in the March issue of the journal Hepatology International,
researchers performed liver biopsies on 348 HBeAg-positive and
HBeAg-negative patients with cirrhosis at the start of their tenofovir
treatment and then five years later.
They found that 99.2% of the cirrhotic patients
achieved undetectable viral load and 79.7% had normal ALT levels after
five years of treatment. About 4% of the patients developed liver
cancer, but this incidence is low over the five-year period, given the
high cancer risk cirrhotics face. Among the HBeAg-positive patients,
14.4% lost HBsAg over the five-year treatment period.
"This represents the largest analyses to date of
chronic hepatitis B patients with sequential liver biopsies
demonstrating that treatment with tenofovir for up to five years is
associated with favorable virologic, serologic, and histologic
outcomes, regardless of baseline cirrhosis status," researchers wrote."
Source: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25788199
http://www.hbvadvocate.org/news/HBJ12.4.htm
Labels: disease progression, reversal of cirrhosis, tenofovir
