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©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 18, 2015; 7(8): 1030-1040
Published online May 18, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i8.1030
Published online May 18, 2015. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v7.i8.1030
Current and future antiviral drug therapies of hepatitis B chronic infection
Lemonica Koumbi, Hepatology and Gastroenterology Section, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom
Author contributions: Koumbi L solely contributed to this work.
Conflict-of-interest: No conflict of interest.
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: Lemonica Koumbi, Research Fellow, Hepatology and Gastroenterology Section, Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, St. Mary’s Campus, Norfolk Place, London W2 1PG, United Kingdom. lemonica.koumbi@gmail.com
Telephone: +44-207-5949022 Fax: +44-207-7069161
Received: August 28, 2014
Peer-review started: August 31, 2014
First decision: Novemeber 27, 2014
Revised: January 12, 2015
Accepted: February 4, 2015
Article in press: February 9, 2015
Published online: May 18, 2015
Peer-review started: August 31, 2014
First decision: Novemeber 27, 2014
Revised: January 12, 2015
Accepted: February 4, 2015
Article in press: February 9, 2015
Published online: May 18, 2015
Core Tip
Core tip: Despite significant improvement in the management of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) it remains a public health problem. Current therapeutic regimens include pegylated-interferon (IFN)-α and nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs). Both treatments do not eradicate the virus and have numerous limitations. IFN therapy is of finite duration and has low response rates while long-term NA therapies have a high risk of drug resistance. The development of new therapeutic approaches is imperative. This review brings together current treatments and the ongoing research efforts on evaluating potential therapeutic strategies that target the suppression of HBV replication the restoration of the weak immune responses against HBV.