Histological outcome for chronic hepatitis B patients treated with entecavir vs lamivudine-based therapy

Table 5 Comparison of baseline characteristics between patients with significant or without improvement in fibrosis after long-term antiviral therapy

	With significant improvement1	Without improvement	P-value
n	9	18
Male gender, n (%)	6 (66.7)	13 (72.2)	0.7657
Age (mean ± SD), yr	42.1 ± 11.6	42.9 ± 9.8	0.8557
log10 HBV DNA (mean ± SD), IU/mL	7.3 ± 1.0	5.9 ± 1.5	0.0175
ALT (mean ± SD), U/L	140 ± 72	99 ± 121	0.0270
HBeAg positivity, n (%)	7 (77.8)	10 (55.6)	0.2597
Median grade (range)	11(3-14)	9 (0-13)	0.2778
Median stage (range)	5 (3-6)	3.5 (2-5)	0.2717
Duration of treatment (mean ± SD), mo	44 ± 11	41 ± 18	0.3956

¹Significant improvement in fibrosis was defined as an Ishak fibrosis score of 0 or 1 post-treatment. HBV: Hepatitis B virus; ALT: Alanine aminotransferase; HBeAg: Hepatitis B e antigen.