Case Control Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Dec 14, 2016; 22(46): 10210-10218
Published online Dec 14, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i46.10210
Effect of switching from treatment with nucleos(t)ide analogs to pegylated interferon α-2a on virological and serological responses in chronic hepatitis B patients
Li-Ting He, Xiao-Guang Ye, Xiao-Yuan Zhou
Li-Ting He, Xiao-Guang Ye, Xiao-Yuan Zhou, Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510260, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Ye XG designed the research and critically reviewed the manuscript for important intellectual content; He LT performed the search, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; Zhou XY collected the cases.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University Institutional Review Board.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent before study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dr. Xiao-Guang Ye, Department of Infectious Diseases, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510260, Guangdong Province, China. yexiaoguang@126.com
Telephone: +86-20-34152236 Fax: +86-20-34153982
Received: June 20, 2016
Peer-review started: June 22, 2016
First decision: July 29, 2016
Revised: August 25, 2016
Accepted: September 28, 2016
Article in press: September 28, 2016
Published online: December 14, 2016
Processing time: 175 Days and 1.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: It is necessary to achieve termination safely with minimal risk of long-term resistance in nucleos(t)ide analog (NA)-treated chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients. We studied NA-treated CHB patients who stopped NAs safely and achieved sustained virological and immunological responses after treatment. We clarified the efficacy and safety of sequential 48-wk pegylated interferon-α-2a (PegIFNα-2a) in NA-treated CHB patients during and after treatment termination. Patients were selected based on the initial serum hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) level. PegIFNα-2a was adjusted based on HBsAg levels at 24 wk of treatment, an important and significant factor in achieving treatment termination safely with immune control.