The Maze of Treatments for Hepatitis B

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Worldwide, there are approximately 350 million carriers of hepatitis B virus (HBV), of whom half a million to 1 million die from liver disease each year. The goal of treatment for chronic hepatitis B is to prevent cirrhosis, hepatic failure, and hepatocellular carcinoma. This goal is best achieved by eradicating HBV before irreversible liver damage occurs. However, the eradication of HBV is impossible to achieve because of the presence of extrahepatic reservoirs of HBV, the integration of HBV DNA into the host genome, and the presence of an intracellular conversion pathway that replenishes the pool of transcriptional templates (covalently closed . . .