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. 2010 Jun;2(6):1279-1305.
doi: 10.3390/v2061279. Epub 2010 May 31.

Antiviral treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections

Erik De Clercq  1 , Geoffrey Férir  1 , Suzanne Kaptein  1 , Johan Neyts  1
Affiliations

Antiviral treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections

Erik De Clercq et al. Viruses. 2010 Jun.

Abstract

While 25 compounds have been formally licensed for the treatment of HIV infection (AIDS), only seven licensed products are currently available for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection: interferon-α, pegylated interferon-α, lamivudine, adefovir (dipivoxil), entecavir, telbivudine and tenofovir (disoproxil fumarate). In contrast to the treatment of HIV infections where the individual drugs are routinely used in combination, for the treatment of chronic HBV infection the individual drugs are generally used in monotherapy. In principle, combination drug therapy should allow reducing the likelihood of drug-resistant development.

Keywords: HBV therapy; antiviral therapy; nucleoside analogs; viral hepatitis.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Currently licensed anti-HBV drugs. (A) The L-nucleoside analog lamivudine; (B) the acyclic nucleoside phosphonate adefovir (PMEA), licensed as its prodrug adefovir dipivoxil [bis(pivaloyloxymethyl)ester of 9-(2-phosphonylmethoxyethyl)adenine or bis(POM)PMEA]; (C) the carbocyclic D-nucleoside analog entecavir; (D) the L-nucleoside analog β-L-2’-deoxythymidine (L-dT), or telbivudine; and (E) the acyclic nucleoside phosphonate tenofovir, licensed as its prodrug tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) [bis(isopropoxycarbonyloxymethyl) ester of 9-(R)-2-(phosphonylmethoxypropyl)adenine or bis(POC)PMPA].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative incidence of HBV resistance to lamivudine (LAM), adefovir (ADV), entecavir (ETV), telbivudine (LdT) and tenofovir (TDF) in published pivotal trials in NUC-naive patients. For method of calculation, see [61]. These trials included different populations, used different exclusion criteria and different follow-up endpoints [151].
Figure 3
Figure 3
(A) Rates of HBe seroconversion, undetectable HBV DNA and normal ALT at one year of therapy with pegylated interferon alpha-2a (PEG-IFN), lamivudine (LAM), adefovir (ADV), entecavir (ETV), telbivudine (LdT) and tenofovir (TDF) in HBeAg-positive patients with CHB in randomized clinical trials. (B) Rates of undetectable HBV DNA and normal ALT at one year of therapy with PEG-IFN, LAM, ADV, ETV, LdT and TDF in HBeAg-negative patients with CHB in randomized clinical trials. The trials in (A) and (B) used different HBV DNA assays and they were not head-to-head comparisons for all the drugs; thus, these numbers are only indicative and should be considered with caution [155].
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