Treatment for hepatitis B - Today's BMJ

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Clinical Review
Treatment for hepatitis B
Graham S Cooke, senior lecturer infectious diseases1,2, Janice Main, reader infectious diseases3, Mark R Thursz, professor of hepatology3

1 Department of Infectious Diseases, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, 2 Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies, University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, 3 Department of Hepatology, St Mary’s Campus, Imperial College London

Correspondence to: G Cooke [Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ]

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Hepatitis B is common in UK practice, particularly among those born in countries with high prevalence

Hepatitis B surface antigen is the screening test of choice in most circumstances

Individuals positive for hepatitis B surface antigen should be referred for specialist evaluation

Liver biopsy remains an important part of assessment

New treatments to reduce long term complications with favourable side effect profiles are available

Most individuals at risk of death from hepatitis B cannot access treatment


Hepatitis B virus is estimated to have infected 350 million individuals globally, accounting for over 500 000 deaths each year.1 An effective and widely available vaccine provides protection from infection, but treatment is rarely curative. Recent developments in antiviral treatment have brought the opportunity for greatly improved management of those chronically infected with hepatitis B virus, and for patients infected both with HIV and hepatitis B virus there is now the potential to treat . . . [Full text of this article]
Published 5 January 2010, doi:10.1136/bmj.b5429
Cite this as: BMJ 2010;340:b5429

[Ссылки доступны только зарегистрированным пользователям ]