Viral blips during long-term treatment with standard or double dose lamivudine in HBe antigen negative chronic hepatitis B

Table 3 Viral blips observed during treatment. A viral blip is a transiently detectable viremia below 4 × 10² copies/mL in a responder patient

	Lam 100	Lam 200	Total
Primary responders (n)	29	12	41
Viral blips n (%)	10 (34.4)	1 (8.3)	11
Breakthroughs no.	7	2	9
Viral blips n (%)	6 (85.7)	1 (50)	7 (77.7)a
End of study responses (Amplicor)	22	10	32
Viral blips n (%)	4 (18.2)	0	4 (12.5)a

^aViral blips among patients with breakthroughs vs viral blips among patients with end of study response; 77.7% vs 12.5%; P = 0.001.