Lamivudine for chronic hepatitis B: a brief review

• Autor(a) principal: Palumbo,Emilio
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Infectious Diseases
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1413-86702008000500002
• topic: Lamivudine; hepatitis; HBV

Until recently, the only generally approved treatment for chronic hepatitis B was alpha-interferon; however, it gives only moderate efficacy in terms of sustained response (biochemical, virological and histological). In fact, only 20% to 40% of treated patients respond to therapy, with lower percentages (~ 10%) among patients infected with precore-mutant strains of HBV (HBeAb HBV-DNA positive). The FDA of the USA approved the use of lamivudine in adult patients affected by chronic hepatitis B in 1998. In this review, we focused on the pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties and efficacy and tolerability of lamivudine in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B cases that are both HBeAg and anti-HBe-positive.