Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Original article
HBsAg seroclearance after nucleoside analogue therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B: clinical outcomes and durability

Abstract

Objective Little is known about the long-term clinical outcome and durability of HBsAg seroclearance following nucleos(t)ide analogue (NUC) therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB).

Design During a median follow-up period of 6 years (33 567 patient-years) of 5409 CHB patients who were initially treated with lamivudine or entecavir, a total of 110 achieved HBsAg seroclearance (0.33% annual seroclearance rate) and were included in this study.

Results Baseline alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level >5 times of upper limit of normal was associated with higher probability of HBsAg seroclearance (HR 1.80, p<0.01), while HBeAg positivity (HR 0.46, p<0.01), high HBV DNA level (log10 IU/mL; HR 0.61, p<0.01), and cirrhosis (HR 0.48, p<0.01) were inversely associated with the probability of HBsAg seroclearance by multivariable analysis. During follow-up for 287 patient-years after HBsAg seroclearance, only two patients with baseline cirrhosis developed hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) or died (0.7% annual risk), which was of a significantly lower rate compared with propensity score-matched patients without HBsAg seroclearance (HR 0.09, p<0.01). HBsAg reversion and/or HBV DNA reversion occurred in 18 patients, most of which were transient with extremely low serum levels of HBsAg (0.05–1.00 IU/mL) and HBV DNA (17-1818 IU/mL). None required retreatment. The cumulative probability of anti-HBs seroconversion (detection of anti-HBs) at 4 years was 67.4% by Kaplan–Meier analysis. Selection for lamivudine-resistance HBV mutants during treatment was not associated with composite reversion (p=0.66).

Conclusions HBsAg seroclearance achieved after NUC treatment was associated with favourable clinical outcomes and was durable in most cases during long-term follow-up.

  • Hepatitis B

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Linked Articles

  • Commentary
    Markus Cornberg Christoph Höner zu Siederdissen
  • Digest
    Emad El-Omar Alexander Gerbes William Grady Thomas Rösch