New hepa B treatment outdoes standard care

A recent study shows that peginterferon alfa 2-a, a new hepatitis B treatment, provides a significantly greater proportion of patients with lasting remission compared to lamivudine, the current standard of care.

A study was conducted among patients with HbeAG positive hepatitis B, the subtype of the disease which affects majority of hepatitis B patients worldwide.

"These are practice-changing results. There is now evidence from two trials in HbeAG-positive hepatitis B that peginterferon alfa 2-a is more beneficial than conventional lamivudine. In a disease that is next to impossible to eradicate, peginterferon alfa 2-a has a very good ability to fight it," said the trial’s lead investigator, Dr. George Lau, gastroenterologist at the Queen Mary Hospital Hong Kong and assistant dean in the Department of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

Chronic hepatitis B is a major global health problem affecting more than 350 million people, and is one of the causes of liver failure, cirrhosis, and liver cancer.

Between one-quarter and one-third of people with chronic hepatitis B will develop progressive liver disease, and about one million will die annually, making the disease the leading cause of death worldwide.