Posted on 04/02/2023 7:32:00 PM PDT by ConservativeMind
More than half of people with chronic hepatitis B have a form of the disease in which the immune system almost never achieves sustained control. Those affected therefore require lifelong drug therapy.
In the world's first study on the discontinuation of treatment with the common antiviral drug for the severe form called HBeAg-negative hepatitis B, scientists have shown that some patients can achieve sustained immune control if they discontinue the antiviral therapy after a certain period of time.
Hepatitis B is an inflammation of the liver caused by the hepatitis B virus. People with chronic hepatitis B usually have to take antiviral medication for life.
About half of those affected suffer from the HBeAg-negative form of the disease.
Results show that after 96 weeks of observation many patients who discontinued an effective antiviral treatment that they had taken for at least four years achieved immune control of the disease. In ten percent of the patients, immune control was demonstrated through loss of previously detectable hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in the blood, an event which is considered a functional cure of hepatitis B.
By the end of the study, in about 41 percent of patients, hepatitis B virus levels in the blood were reduced to below the level of 2,000 units per milliliter, which according to international treatment guidelines means that there is no longer an indication for renewed antiviral therapy. Additionally, 77 percent of patients no longer had elevated liver inflammation levels. In contrast, no patient who continued antiviral treatment showed HBsAg loss.
Professor Florian van Bömmel, said, "We were able to show that in some patients discontinuing long-term therapy with nucleoside or nucleotide analogs after at least four years is more effective than continuing it. Patients who show low HBsAg levels have a high chance of functional cure."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
BTTT!!!
Treatment is great, but prevention of Hepatitis B is much better. Fortunately Hepatitis B is on the list of childhood vaccinations. Giving a Hepatitis B vaccination just after birth is extremely effective in preventing transmission from an infected mother to her baby from exposure during birth. This is followed up by more vaccinations in the first 6 months after birth. The early vaccinations are drastically cutting the intergenerational transmission of Hepatitis B.
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