Chronic hepatitis B: integrating long-term treatment data and strategies to improve outcomes in clinical practice.

A number of agents can reduce viral replication in patients with chronic hepatitis B, but most patients do not undergo a curative response to these drugs and therefore require long-term therapy. Thus, recent studies have investigated the long-term safety, efficacy, and resistance profiles of several antiviral nucleotide/nucleoside agents: lamivudine, telbivudine, adefovir dipivoxil, entecavir, and tenofovir. The most recent data have revealed that lamivudine and telbivudine produce high rates of resistance when treatment is continued for 2-5 years; as a result, these agents are no longer preferred for first-line monotherapy. Entecavir and tenofovir, on the other hand, appear to have favorable safety and efficacy profiles when used as monotherapy, with very low rates of resistance over 5 years. In order to help clinicians incorporate these data into clinical practice, this monograph will review recently published data on hepatitis B antiviral medications, as well as explore when to consider cessation of therapy. The treatment of special patient populations and the need to screen patients for hepatocellular carcinoma will also be discussed.