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Benefit of stopping finite nucleos(t)ide analogues therapy in chronic hepatitis B patients
  1. Yun-Fan Liaw1,
  2. Wen-Juei Jeng1,2
  1. 1 Liver Research Unit, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Taipei, Taiwan
  2. 2 Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Chang-Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou Medical Cente, Taipei, Taiwan
  1. Correspondence to Professor Yun-Fan Liaw, Liver Research Unit, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, 199, Tung Hwa North Road, Taipei 105, Taiwan; liveryfl{at}gmail.com

https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2019-320341

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    The article of Liem et al 1 addressed important issues of finite nucleos(t)ide analogues (NUC) therapy in mostly Asian (>95%) patients with chronic hepatitis B. It is a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on this issue second to that of the first but a smaller one involving mainly (85%–90%) Caucasian patients.2 Whereas recent controlled and cohort studies in pretherapy HBeAg-negative patients have provided evidence of much increased HBsAg loss rate after stopping NUC therapy,2–6 the reasons of the contradictory conclusion of this study and several critical points of this trial deserve clarification and further discussion.

    First, only 42% of the 159 patients agreed to be enrolled. Are there any bias comparing …

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    Footnotes

    • Y-FL and W-JJ contributed equally.

    • Contributors Y-FL and W-JL co-wrote this letter and contributed equally.

    • Funding This work was supported by grants from the Chang Gung Medical Research Programme (CMRPG1G0061-3, CMRPG3A0901-3, CORPG3G0651), National Science Council, Taiwan (MOST105-2628-B-182-011-MY3) and the Prosperous Foundation, Taipei, Taiwan.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.