Tsounis EP, Tourkochristou E, Mouzaki A, Triantos C. Toward a new era of hepatitis B virus therapeutics: The pursuit of a functional cure. World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(21): 2727-2757 [PMID: 34135551 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i21.2727]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Christos Triantos, FAASLD, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Patras, D. Stamatopoulou 4, Rio, Patras 26504, Greece. chtriantos@hotmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Infectious Diseases
Article-Type of This Article
Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 7, 2021; 27(21): 2727-2757 Published online Jun 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i21.2727
Toward a new era of hepatitis B virus therapeutics: The pursuit of a functional cure
Efthymios P Tsounis, Evanthia Tourkochristou, Athanasia Mouzaki, Christos Triantos
Efthymios P Tsounis, Evanthia Tourkochristou, Christos Triantos, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece
Athanasia Mouzaki, Division of Hematology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Patras, Patras 26504, Greece
Author contributions: Tsounis PE and Tourkochristou E have contributed equally to this work; Tsounis PE and Tourkochristou E were responsible for the literature review and analysis, for drafting the manuscript and interpreting the data; Mouzaki A and Triantos C were responsible for the revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content; all authors provided final approval for the submitted version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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/
Corresponding author: Christos Triantos, FAASLD, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Internal Medicine, Medical School, University of Patras, D. Stamatopoulou 4, Rio, Patras 26504, Greece. chtriantos@hotmail.com
Received: January 20, 2021 Peer-review started: January 20, 2021 First decision: February 9, 2021 Revised: February 23, 2021 Accepted: April 13, 2021 Article in press: April 13, 2021 Published online: June 7, 2021
Core Tip
Core Tip: Despite preventive vaccination and effective antiviral drugs, approximately 300 million people worldwide are at risk of liver-related morbidity and mortality from hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. In the search for more effective strategies, research has focused on two broad categories of therapeutic intervention. First, direct-acting antivirals that interrupt various stages of the HBV life cycle are yielding promising results in clinical trials that show suppression of the HBV antigen load. Second, the need to address depleted immune responses and revive the tolerogenic liver microenvironment has brought immunotherapies to the forefront. It is likely that an upcoming treatment that combines agents from both classes will achieve HBV elimination.
