— Christine M. Kukka, Project Manager, HBV Advocate
Researchers treated 115 Chinese patients who had developed drug resistance to the antivirals adefovir (Hepsera) and lamivudine (Epivir-HBV) with a daily pill of 300 mg tenofovir for more than a year.
After 72 weeks of treatment, according to the report published in the November issue of the journalHepatology Research, 86.1% of the previously hard-to-treat patients achieved undetectable viral load and 77.3% achieved normal ALT levels, indicating no liver damage from the infection. They also reported that 23.2% of the tenofovir-treated patients lost HBeAg during the 72-week treatment period.
The patients who fared best had viral loads (HBV DNA levels) of less than 1 million international units per milliliter (IU/mL) at the start of treatment. No kidney damage was observed in any of the patients.
"Seventy-two-week treatment with tenofovir in Chinese chronic hepatitis B patients with previously multiple (antiviral) treatment failures exhibited effective and safe outcomes," researchers wrote, despite the presence of adefovir and lamivudine drug resistance.
Labels: Adefovir resistance, lamivudine resistance, tenofovir
