Long term Entecavir {ETV} Treatment for HBV

Histologic Assessment of Long-term Entecavir (ETV) Treatment in Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) Patients -- see attached full poster report

Reported by Jules Levin, Feb 2009 Hong Kong 19th APASL- Conference of the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of the Liver 2009
F. Imazeki1, M. Kage2, M. Moriyama3, H. Kumada4, H. Kobashi5, J. Toyota6, K. Takaguchi7, N. Izumi8, H. Ikeda9, S. Fujioka10, Y. Katano11, M. Sata12, H. Ishikawa13, T. Seriu13, O. Yokosuka1, M. Omata14. 1Department of Medicine and Clinical Oncology, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan; 2Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Kurume University, Fukuoka, Japan; 3Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of medicine, Nihon University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan; 4Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Toranomon Hospital, Tokyo, Japan; 5Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan; 6Department of Hepatology, Sapporo Kosei General Hospital, Hokkaido, Japan; 7Department of Internal Medicine, Kagawa Prefectural Central Hospital, Kagawa, Japan; 8Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Musashino Red Cross Hospital, Tokyo, Japan; 9Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Kurashiki Central Hospital, Okayama, Japan; 10Department of Internal Medicine, Okayama Saiseikai General Hospital, Okayama, Japan;
11Department of Gastroenterology, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, Aichi, Japan; 12Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Kurume University School of Medicine, Fukuoka, Japan; 13Research and Development, Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Tokyo, Japan; 14Department of Gastroenterology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

Author Summary of Results
Three years of ETV treatment resulted in histologic improvement in 100% of nucleoside-naïve and 89% of LVDr patients
Treatment with ETV beyond 48 weeks resulted in further improvement in fibrosis scores in both naïve and LVDr patients
High proportions of both naïve and LVDr patients achieved HBV DNA suppression and ALT normalization during 3 years of ETV
Mean albumin and platelet counts continued to increase between week 48 and week 148 (data not shown).

Author Conclusion
The results from these cohorts demonstrate that long-term continuous treatment with ETV results in durable suppression of HBV replication and significant histologic improvement in nucleoside-naïve and LVDr patients