Interferon α Treatment and Retreatment of Hepatitis B e Antigen-Negative Chronic Hepatitis B

Background & Aims: In hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B (CHBe-), interferon (IFN) achieves very low biochemical sustained response rates. No information exists on retreatment. Methods: Two hundred sixteen CHBe- patients treated for 5 or 12 months with 3 MU IFN-α2b thrice...

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Veröffentlicht in:Gastroenterology (New York, N.Y. 1943) N.Y. 1943), 2001-07, Vol.121 (1), p.101-109
Hauptverfasser: Manesis, Emanuel K., Hadziyannis, Stephanos J.
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Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:Background & Aims: In hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B (CHBe-), interferon (IFN) achieves very low biochemical sustained response rates. No information exists on retreatment. Methods: Two hundred sixteen CHBe- patients treated for 5 or 12 months with 3 MU IFN-α2b thrice weekly and retreated (51 patients, 60 courses) because of no response or relapse were retrospectively analyzed. Results: After 7.0 years of median follow-up, 39 naive patients (18.1%) were still in biochemical and virologic remission after a single IFN course. Longer treatment and a biochemical response within 4 months were significant predictors, inversely related to relapse by multivariate analysis (relative hazard [RH], 0.611; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.448–0.834 and RH, 0.290; 95% Cl, 0.192–0.438, respectively). Retreatment resulted in 18.4% sustained response by intention-to-treat (18 of 98 patients). Patients with sustained response had persistently normal alanine aminotransferase levels, undetectable hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA by molecular hybridization, and significant improvement of histologic grade, and 32% of them lost hepatitis B surface antigen. In sustained responders, serum HBV DNA was undetectable or very low at the end of treatment and at the end of follow-up (median 3934 and 903 copies/mL, respectively) by quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Conclusions: IFN induced long-term biochemical and virologic remission in approximately 18% of naive or retreated patients with CHBe-. Sustained responders exhibited significant histologic improvement and a high rate of HBsAg loss.
ISSN:0016-5085
1528-0012
DOI:10.1053/gast.2001.25524