Active clinical trials for "Hepatitis B"

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) causes a wide spectrum of liver diseases, such as fulminant or acute hepatitis, chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma. The number of individuals infected with this virus has been estimated to be as high as 350 million. Thus, in addition to global hepatitis B vaccination, effective treatment of chronic hepatitis B is also needed. Currently, there are no effective antiviral treatments to cure HBV infection in patients with chronic hepatitis B. Five drugs have been approved for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B at present: conventional interferon (IFN) alpha, lamivudine, adefovir dipivoxil, pegylated IFN alpha and recently entecavir. Overall, satisfactory virologic and serologic responses could be achieved using pegylated IFN alpha alone in around 20-44% of these patients. Nevertheless, better treatment options are still needed for the remaining >50% non-responders. Although the best treatment choice for chronic hepatitis B is not clarified yet, certain therapeutic concepts could be derived from the experience of treating patients with chronic hepatitis C. A major advancement in treating hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has been the development of combination therapy with IFN and ribavirin. IFN monotherapy is limited by poor sustained virologic responses, even when higher doses of IFN are used. IFN plus ribavirin combination therapy, in contrast, results in much improved treatment outcomes. In our previous study and others, sustained remission rate after cessation of therapy were significantly higher in patients receiving combination therapy than those receiving IFN alone. Therefore, combination therapy with IFN and ribavirin has been recommended as the standard treatment regimen for chronic hepatitis C. Furthermore, we have used ribavirin and IFN combination for the treatment of dual chronic hepatitis B and C, and the results also revealed that the efficacy of clearing HCV RNA was not affected by the presence of HBV infection. Interestingly, after a little more than 2-year post-treatment follow-up, we found that a significant portion (21%) of the responsive patients also cleared HBsAg. These findings imply that this combination regimen might be also effective for the control of chronic hepatitis B. We thus conducted a randomized, multi-center, placebo-controlled study in patients with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B.

* AIMS OF THE STUDY (STUDY OBJECTIVES) To test the effect of daily lamivudine (100 mg) in reducing the risk of HBV reactivation and hepatitis development in HBsAg (+) NHL patients. To test the efficacy of daily lamivudine in preventing and treating hepatitis B reactivation and in circumventing hepatic failure and death. To test whether lamivudine can improve the overall outcome of NHL patients who are HBV carriers. (Study end-points: The major end-point: hepatitis B reactivation in NHL patients---defined by higher than 10-fold increase of serum HBV DNA level and/or reappearance of HBeAg in the serum during and within 6 months after chemotherapy. The minor end-point I : events of hepatic failure and death---defined by jaundice with hepatic encephalopathy. The minor end-point II: the response rate and survival rate in HBsAg-positive NHL patients receiving lamivudine prophylaxis and treatment.)

The aim of therapy for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) is to maintain suppression of viral replication to prevent the emergence of complications, which requires long-term therapy. Durable suppression of viral replication is achieved in the treatment of chronic viral diseases by preventing of the emergence of drug-resistant mutations. The clinical guidelines for the management of lamivudine resistant patients are variable. Some recommend switching to another agent without cross-resistance, while others recommend adding on another agent without cross-resistance. Limited clinical data exists to demonstrate whether tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (tenofovir DF; TDF) is an effective monotherapy for lamivudine resistant patients or if it should be used as part of a combination therapy regimen. This study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness, safety, and tolerability of tenofovir DF monotherapy versus emtricitabine (FTC)/tenofovir DF combination therapy in participants with chronic HBV with lamivudine resistance (presence of the rtM204I/V mutation with or without the rtL180M mutation) over a 240-week period. Participants in this study must be receiving lamivudine treatment at the time of enrollment.

Rationale: Worldwide, approximately 400 million people are chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV). Chronic HBV infection increases the risk of developing cirrhosis, hepatic decompensation and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma is highest in HBeAg positive patients with high HBV DNA levels, but still the relative risk remains 10 for HBeAg negative patients. Furthermore it has been shown that when HBsAg is cleared before cirrhosis has developed, the prognosis is excellent. Recently the investigators have shown that HBeAg negative patients with high HBV-DNA load and low baseline HBsAg levels had a significantly higher HBsAg clearance (positive predictive value of 85%) after combination therapy with peginterferon alfa2a (Peg-IFN) and adefovir. Based on these results, a trial was designed to investigate whether combination of a nucleos(t)ide analogue combined with PegIFN, could also provoke a high rate of HBsAg clearance in chronic hepatitis B patients with low (HBV DNA <20,000 IU/mL) viral load. Study design: This is a three arm open-label prospective randomized controlled trial. 150 patients will be enrolled into the study after assessment of eligibility. All patients must have documented HBsAg positivity for longer than 6 months, HBeAg negativity, anti-HBe positivity, HBV DNA < 20,000 IU/mL and ALT < 5 * upper limit of normal. Patients with a Child Pugh class B or C will be excluded. Group 1 will consist of patients treated with Peg-IFN and adefovir, group 2 will consist of patients treated with Peg-IFN and tenofovir and group 3 will consist of untreated controls. Patients in group 1 and 2 will receive medication for the period of one year. For enrolment into the study a liverbiopsy at time of enrolment is compulsory and is advisable at end of treatment (week 48). Study population: The study population will consist of 150 patients chronically infected with hepatitis B virus with low viral load and HBeAg negativity. Main study parameters/endpoints: The aim of this study is to investigate what proportion of HBeAg negative, inactive carriers of the hepatitis B virus with low (< 20,000 IU/mL) load will lose HBsAg when treated with nucleot(s)ide analogue/Peg-IFN combination therapy. In this study the investigators hypothesize that both treatment with peg-interferon and ADF or Peg-IFN and TDF in HBeAg negative chronic hepatitis B patients with low HBV DNA viral load will induce a high rate of HBsAg loss, comparable to that in patients with high viral load after treatment with ADF and Peg-IFN.

Treatment with a nucleoside analogue and subsequent viral decline has shown to partially restore immune hyporesponsiveness in chronic hepatitis B patients. Recent pilot studies investigating whether the effect of lowering viral load with nucleoside analogue therapy prior to the initiation of peginterferon results in higher sustained off-treatment responses showed contradictory findings. The aim of this study is to investigate sustained off-treatment response to peginterferon alfa-2b in chronic HBeAg-positive hepatitis B patients who are pretreated with nucleos(t)ide analogues, thereby lowering viral load

The presence of persistent inadequate or suboptimal virologic response is a strong risk factor for viral resistance and breakthrough and also for disease progression of chronic hepatitis B, and thus, a change in therapy is required. The combination of entecavir (ETV) and adefovir (ADV) is a promising treatment for patients with lamivudine (LAM)-resistance who show suboptimal response to the combination of LAM and ADV. In this randomized, open labeled trial,the investigators will compare the efficacy of continuation of ADV plus LAM versus switch to ADV plus ETV in adults with LAM-resistant chronic hepatitis B who shows suboptimal response to the combination treatment of ADV and LAM.

Patients with chronic hepatitis B and treated with entecavir for over 6 months (with no previous other antiviral treatment) will be invited to participate in this study. They will be eligible if their liver tests are normal and their viral load is undetectable. Patients will be switched to lamivudine treatment to assess whether lamivudine can maintain adequate suppression of the hepatitis B virus after successful treatment with entecavir. Patients will be monitored closely after switching treatment at 1 months and then every 3 monthly. If there is any evidence of increase in viral load then patients will be given the option of changing back to entecavir.

A open-labeled phase lV study with 96 weeks of treatment period. The purpose of this study is to investigate safety and efficacy of clevudine in patients chronically infected with hepatitis B virus, HBeAg positive or negative.

Cirrhosis is a diffuse lesion characterized by architectural distortion of the liver because of collagen deposition and development of nodules of regenerating hepatocytes. It is an irreversible change that results from diseases characterized by chronic liver injury (Fujimoto, 2000). Cirrhosis alters the pattern of blood flow through the liver and results in impaired perfusion of hepatic lobules with intrahepatic and extrahepatic shunting of blood. This deprives hepatocytes of uniform perfusion by arterial and portal venous blood resulting in both portal hypertension and other consequences of cirrhosis including impaired protein synthesis and altered drug metabolism. The histologic diagnosis of cirrhosis requires the presence of regenerative nodules or pseudolobules completely encircled by fibrosis such as congenital hepatic fibrosis can result in portal hypertension in the absence of cirrhosis (Anthony et al., 1977). The events leading to the development of cirrhosis are generally those of chronic injury with hepatocyte destruction. Acute severe liver injury as in fulminant viral hepatitis does not result in cirrhosis and the liver generally returns to normal after recovery. Cirrhosis can be classified by macroscopic appearance, by cause, and by histologic appearance and location of liver damage. Micronodular cirrhosis is composed of uniform nodules less than 3 mm in diameter, whereas macronodular cirrhosis has varying size nodules greater than 3 mm diameter. Mixed nodular cirrhosis has nodules of both sizes. Some liver diseases such as alcoholic liver disease may present as micronodular cirrhosis and develop larger nodules with subsequent regeneration of hepatocytes. For this reason, many prefer etiologic classification (e.g., alcoholic cirrhosis). The designation of cirrhosis as post necrotic, biliary and portal are still commonly used and imply predominant histologic location of fibrosis. Cirrhosis is an irreversible disease, and attempts should be made to stabilize the patient and to control the cause. Factors that indicate a poor outcome include an elevated prothrombin time that does not correct itself with parenteral vitamin K, upper gastrointestinal bleeding caused by varices, ascites refractory to therapy, increased age of the patient, sever malnutrition, spontaneous bacterial peritonitis, a pronounced increase of serum bilirubin in the absence of haemolysis, and heptocellular carcinoma (Yeh et al., 2003). In general, all causes of upper GI bleeding are associated with an increased mortality in patients with cirrhosis. For those with alcoholic cirrhosis who lack portal hypertension, survival is similar to an age-matched cohort if alcohol intake is stopped (Nakamura et al., 1991). If ethanol consumption continues, mortality is higher. Cirrhosis can be present without clinically significant complications and be identified only at autopsy or during evaluation of abnormal liver tests (Mendez et al., 2003). However, for many patients the disease is slowly progressive resulting in one or more complications. The clinical manifestations of cirrhosis are a result of altered hepatic blood flow through the liver with intrahepatic shunting causing impaired perfusion of hepatocytes or portal hypertension with shunting of blood around the liver though portosystemic communications. The major complications of portal hypertension include oesophageal or gastric varices, ascites, portosystemic encephalopathy, and hepatorenal-syndrome (Menon & Kamath, 2000). With impairment of hepatocyte perfusion or reduction of hepatocyte number, altered synthetic function can result in hypoalbuminemia, hypoprothrombinemia, and changes in drug metabolism. Vitalliver is a Chinese medicine which is administered in the form of a suppository, which is uncommon for most Chinese medicines. Medications released from the suppositories are absorbed directly from the circulation around the rectum and then reach the liver via the portal vein. Basic pharmacological studies have shown that Vitalliver has good immunomodulating functions, increases the activities of T-cells, B-cells and NK cells, therefore this formulation may have special values in treating liver diseases.

The purpose of this study is to determine if DNA vaccination of chronic HBV patients under treatment with NRTI can restore T-cell responsiveness and delay virologic reactivation after treatment discontinuation.