48 Weeks Combination Therapy for Patients With HBeAg-negative Chronic Hepatitis B Virus (HBV) Infection

Despite the introduction of newer drugs for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B, there is still no optimal treatment. Pegylated interferon alfa has proven sustained efficacy in approximately 30-40% of patients with HBeAg-positive or HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B. It is likely that combination therapy of pegylated interferon alfa with ribavirin in chronic hepatitis B is more effective than pegylated interferon alfa monotherapy. In chronic hepatitis C, adding ribavirin to pegylated interferon therapy doubled the sustained response rate (29% vs. 56%) and has become the standard option of treatment. To investigate the effect of the treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin on the amount of inflammation and fibrosis in the liver, a liver biopsy will be performed within one year prior to screening and at the end of follow-up. When patients with chronic hepatitis B are treated outside any study with pegylated interferon, they visit the outpatient clinic approximately every month for blood samples. So in this study the amount of blood samples taken from every patient is not increased as compared with treatment outside a study.