BACKGROUND Treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) with nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) suppresses hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA production but does not affect the synthesis of the RNA pregenome or HBV messenger RNA. Whether HBV RNA-containing particles continue to be secreted into the bloodstream remains controversial. METHODS We developed a sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR)...

The treatment of HBV infection in patients with HIV co-infection presents several peculiar features: some drugs active against HBV are also active against HIV. This precludes their use in monotherapy in HIV-HBV co-infected patients due to the potential risk of selecting HIV-resistant strains. Telbivudine seemed to be a candidate for exclusive anti-HBV therapy because it exerts no significant in...

INTRODUCTION Risk of reactivation of Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and other liver related complications continues to be a major cause of concern in HBV carriers undergoing cadaveric renal transplantation. Antiviral medications have been recommended post renal transplantation in patients who are chronic HBV carriers. CASE REPORT Here we present the case of a 15-year-old girl known to have...

We describe a 27-year-old hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected pregnant woman, with a history of miscarriage a year ago. The patient has been HBsAg and HBeAg positive for 20 years but has never been treated for HBV infection, because of stable elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity and high viral load. Treatment with tenofovir disoproxil was introduced in the 10th week of pregnancy and HB...

More than 240 million people worldwide are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Mother-to-child transmission remains the most important mechanism of infection in countries with a high prevalence of HBV. Universal screening of all pregnant women, at-birth prophylaxis with specific anti-HBV immune globulin, as well as HBV vaccination for newborns of infected mothers are effective in...

Recent years have witnessed the development of highly effective immunomodulatory therapies, especially for treating cancers and autoimmune diseases. The most promising targets include immunosuppressive Tregs, characterized by FoxP3 expression, and the inhibitory pathways involving CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 molecules. A recent paper by Germanidis et al. provides interesting insights into the relevan...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) associated end-stage liver diseases are the leading causes of liver transplantation (LT) in Taiwan. Relapse of hepatitis B occurs after LT, raising the risk of graft failure and reducing patient survival. Although several oral antiviral agents have been approved for anti-HBV treatment, lamivudine (LAM) remained to be the most widely used preventive regimen in Taiwan. Whi...

With this study, the authors hope to alert clinicians regarding the presence of human T-cell lymphotropic virus type 1 and 2 (HTLV-1/-2) infections in patients with viral hepatitis B and C in Brazil. HTLV-1/-2 were detected in 1.3% of hepatitis B virus (HBV)- and 5.3% of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected blood samples sent for laboratory viral load measurements. A partial association of human im...

Women with viral chronic hepatitis generally do quite well during pregnancy, providing that they have not progressed to decompensated cirrhosis. As a general rule, a stable liver equals a safe pregnancy. However, concern is about how pre-existing chronic liver disease may affect the pregnancy and the unborn baby. This review plans to answer some key questions regarding this issue in order to pr...

Mathematical models have been used to understand the factors that govern infectious disease progression in viral infections. Here we focus on hepatitis B virus (HBV) dynamics during the acute stages of the infection and analyze the immune mechanisms responsible for viral clearance. We start by presenting the basic model used to interpret HBV therapy studies conducted in chronically infected pat...