Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. Jun 18, 2015; 7(11): 1541-1552
Published online Jun 18, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i11.1541
Current and future directions for treating hepatitis B virus infection
Akinobu Tawada, Tatsuo Kanda, Osamu Yokosuka
Akinobu Tawada, Tatsuo Kanda, Osamu Yokosuka, Department of Gastroenterology and Nephrology, Chiba University, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba 260-8677, Japan
Author contributions: Tawada A, Kanda T and Yokosuka O contributed to this paper.
Conflict-of-interest: Akinobu Tawada has no conflict of interest to declare. Tatsuo Kanda reports receiving lecture fees from Chugai Pharmaceutical, MSD, Tanabe-Mitsubishi, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Osamu Yokosuka reports receiving grant support from Chugai Pharmaceutical, Bayer, MSD, Daiichi-Sankyo, Tanabe-Mitsubishi, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.
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: Tatsuo Kanda, MD, PhD, Department of Gastroenterology and Nephrology, Chiba University, Graduate School of Medicine, 1-8-1 Inohana, Chuo-ku, Chiba 260-8677, Japan. kandat-cib@umin.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-43-2262086 Fax: +81-43-2262088
Received: January 10, 2015
Peer-review started: January 10, 2015
First decision: March 6, 2015
Revised: March 16, 2015
Accepted: April 28, 2015
Article in press: April 30, 2015
Published online: June 18, 2015
Processing time: 157 Days and 7.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is one of the major causes of hepatocellular carcinoma, which is a cancer with poor prognosis. We reviewed the natural course of HBV infection and current standard therapies for chronic HBV infection. Peginterferon and nucleos(t)ide analogues, such as entecavir and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, have several drug-specific advantages and disadvantages. It is difficult to eliminate covalently closed circular DNA of HBV with these current standard therapies. Further improvements of the therapeutic options for HBV infections should be needed.