Expert Opin Biol Ther. 2018 Sep 5. doi: 10.1080/14712598.2018.1518423. [Epub ahead of print]
Interferon-based treatment is superior to nucleos(t)ide analogue in reducing HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma for chronic hepatitis B patients at high risk.
Ren P1, Cao Z1, Mo R1, Liu Y1, Chen L1, Li Z1, Zhou T1, Lu J1, Liu Y1, Guo Q1, Chen R1, Zhou H1, Xiang X1, Cai W1, Wang H1, Bao S2, Xu Y1, Gui H1, Xie Q1.
Author information
1
a Department of Infectious Diseases , Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine , China.
2
b Discipline of Pathology , the University of Sydney , New South Wales 2006 , Australia.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
The effect of nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) vs interferon (IFN) on the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) is controversial. We assessed whether antiviral strategy affected HCC development in CHB patients at different HCC risks.
METHODS:
1112 CHB patients with antiviral therapy were included in this retrospective study. Patients treated with NAs only were classified into NAs group (n = 682) while those received IFN treatment with or without NAs were defined as the IFN group (n = 430). Propensity score matching (PSM) was applied to minimize baseline differences.
RESULTS:
Thirty-one patients developed HCC during follow-up (median 5.41 years). The cumulative HCC incidence at 10 years was significantly lower in the IFN group than NAs group (2.7% vs 8.0%, p < 0.001). Similar results were obtained in the PSM-cohort. Patients with IFN-based treatment were less likely to develop HCC than those with NAs (Hazard ratio = 0.15; 95% CI 0.04-0.66; p = 0.012). Subgroup analyses demonstrated that this superiority of IFN in reducing HCC development was obvious in patients at high- but not low-risk of HCC.
CONCLUSIONS:
Reduction of HCC development was more significant in CHB patients at higher HCC risk with IFN-based therapy than NAs treatment.
KEYWORDS: