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By Liz Highleyman
Prior research has shown that treatment-naive hepatitis B "e" antigen (HBeAg) positive or negative chronic hepatitis B patients treated with 0.5 mg daily entecavir for 1 year showed significantly more improvement in virological (HBV DNA), biochemical (ALT level), and liver histology (tissue damage) endpoints than those using lamivudine (Epivir-HBV).
[size=-1]Ting-Tsung Chang from National Cheng Kung University Medical College in Taiwan and colleagues looked at liver biopsy findings for patients who received at least 3 years of cumulative entecavir in Phase 3 clinical trials and a long-term rollover study (participants entered the rollover study after completing the randomized part of the trials). During the Phase 3 trials patients received entecavir at a dose of 0.5 mg once-daily, and during the rollover study they received 1.0 mg once-daily. Some participants received lamivudine in addition to entecavir for a brief period.
A total of 69 patients -- 50 HBeAg positive and 19 HBeAg negative -- underwent liver biopsies to evaluate improvement in histological appearance, or extent of liver damage including fibrosis and cirrhosis (scarring), after long-term entecavir therapy. Biopsies were done after a median 6 years of entecavir use (range 3-7 years). Histological improvement was analyzed for 57 patients who had adequate baseline and long-term biopsy samples available for comparison. All these participants had baseline Knodell necro-inflammatory scores of 2 or higher.
Results
[size=-1]At the time of the long-term biopsies, all participants had undetectable HBV DNA < 300 copies/mL. | |
[size=-1]86% had normalized ALT levels at this point. | |
[size=-1]55% experienced HBeAg loss and 33% achieved HBe antibody seroconversion. | |
[size=-1]Almost all analyzed patients -- 97% -- showed histological improvement, defined as at least a 2 point decrease in Knodell necro-inflammatory score and no worsening of Knodell fibrosis score. | |
[size=-1]88% of patients achieved at least a 1 point improvement in Ishak fibrosis score, including all 10 participants who had advanced fibrosis or cirrhosis at the start of Phase 3 trials. | |
[size=-1]Long-term entecavir therapy was generally well-tolerated, with no unexpected drug-related adverse events. |
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