Interferon Alfa-2b for Chronic Hepatitis B

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Abstract
Perrillo et al. (Aug. 2 issue)* reported the results of a randomized, controlled trial of interferon alfa-2b alone in high and low doses and after prednisone withdrawal for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. The patients randomly assigned to the highdose group received 5 million units of interferon daily for 16 weeks, whereas the low-dose group received 1 million units of interferon daily for 16 weeks. The results were striking: 36 percent of the patients treated with prednisone plus high-dose interferon lost the hepatitis B e antigen and hepatitis B viral DNA, as did 37 percent of those treated with the 5 million units of interferon alone. In comparison, only 7 percent of the untreated controls had such changes. The group given 1 million units of interferon (the low dose) had only a 17 percent response rate, and the authors stated that this was not significantly different from the rate in the control group.

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