Cure for hepatitis B could be in the offing

scilab

Sydney, April 21 (IANS) A combination therapy of an antiviral drug and an anti-cancer drug has been found 100 percent successful in eliminating the hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections in pre-clinical models, Australian scientists have said.

Hepatitis B is a chronic viral disease that is currently incurable. The virus infects liver cells and can lead to complications including cirrhosis and liver cancer, resulting in more than 780,000 deaths worldwide annually, the study pointed out.

Scientists from Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute developed the combination treatment using birinapant, a drug developed by US biotech company TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals for treating cancer.

"We were 100 percent successful in curing HBV infection in hundreds of tests in preclinical models," said one of the researchers Marc Pellegrini.

"Birinapant enabled the destruction of hepatitis B-infected liver cells while leaving normal cells unharmed," Pellegrini noted.

"Excitingly, when birinapant was administered in combination with current antiviral drug entecavir, the infection was cleared twice as fast compared with birinapant alone. We are hopeful these promising results will be as successful in human clinical trials, which are currently underway in Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide," Pellegrini said.

The combination treatment, developed in collaboration with TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, US, targets the cell signalling pathways that the hepatitis B virus uses to keep host liver cells alive.

Chronic infectious diseases such as HBV live within the host's cells, enabling them to persist within the body for many months or years, Pellegrini said.

"The virus relies on the survival mechanisms of the host, so if it cannot exploit them, it dies. Such a monumental change in the virus' environment may be too big a hurdle for it to adapt to," Pellegrini said.

More than two billion people worldwide are infected with hepatitis B and approximately 400 million have a chronic HBV infection.

The findings were detailed in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

我的滑板鞋

还是那句话，引起炎症怎么控制？

newchinabok

保肝的药很多

战天斗hbv

我的滑板鞋 发表于 2015-4-22 21:52
还是那句话，引起炎症怎么控制？

这个交由研发人员和FDA考虑即可、FDA敢批准上市、我就敢吃

我的滑板鞋

回复 newchinabok 的帖子

保肝这个词在这个药面前就是个伪命题啊，这个药的原理就是靠摧毁被感染的肝细胞来实现目的的，你保肝的话会不会抑制药效呢？我觉得这是个很值得思考的问题。
当然，真心祈祷这个药能作为特效药横空出世！咱们都早日解放！

x321

六月就会知道疗效？

呕卖膏滴

想想确实有点肝颤。杀死肝细胞，肝细胞再生填补空白，这尼玛要是任何环节出问题都是要命的节奏

Olivia123

回复 呕卖膏滴 的帖子

没那么可怕，干嘛危言耸听啊，感觉治个病还要九死一生的节奏。要是i 真的弊大于利，它就不会上市了，也不会轮到我们去害怕了。现在我们关心的应该是它六月份的临床报告，人体试验是否有效不是么。要是连人体效果都没有，还担忧那么多没意义的干嘛。

战天斗hbv

呕卖膏滴 发表于 2015-4-23 09:26
想想确实有点肝颤。杀死肝细胞，肝细胞再生填补空白，这尼玛要是任何环节出问题都是要命的节奏 ...

先要有效、再谈副作用