ABSTRACT

We aimed to investigate the independent variables that determine virologic response in chronic hepatitis B patients treated with tenofovir or adefovir.

Methods:

In this study, patients who received adefovir or tenofovir treatment alone due to chronic hepatitis B were reviewed retrospectively. Our study included patients who received treatment for a period of at least 3 months. Determination of negative serum HBV DNA was considered as virological response. In patients with chronic hepatitis B, the effects of variables like HBeAg status, age, body mass index, gender, alcohol use, Knodell and fibrosis score in liver biopsy, lamivudine resistance before treatment, the use of adefovir or tenofovir, serum HBV DNA levels before treatment, and serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels before treatment were examined regarding the response to treatment.

Results:

In multivariate analysis, the drug used for chronic HBV infection and HBeAg status were identified as the independent variables that determined virologic response to treatment. The patients treated with tenofovir had higher virologic response rate than those treated with adefovir (p=0.006). HBeAg-negative patients had higher virologic response rate than HBeAg-positive patients (p=0.039). The other variables were not significant in terms of response to treatment.

Conclusion:

These findings led us to believe that 1- Patients treated with tenofovir had higher virologic response rate than with adefovir, and 2- HBeAg- negative patients had better virologic response to adefovir or tenofovir than HBeAg-positive patients.