Alpha-interferon therapy for chronic hepatitis B virus infection in children and Oriental patients

In summary, these four studies showed that alpha-IFN therapy alone produced sustained inhibition of HBV replication in a minority of Chinese adults with chronic HBV infection. The response was not improved by instituting treatment at an earlier age. The major reason for the poor response in Chinese patients is probably immune tolerance as a result of early exposure to HBV. The response in Chinese patients with elevated pre-treatment serum ALT levels, who presumably had ongoing endogenous immune lysis of infected hepatocytes, was significantly better than and comparable with that reported in Caucasian patients. Prednisone priming did not provide any additional advantage over therapy with IFN alone in patients with normal pre-treatment serum ALT levels, but appeared to have additional benefit in patients with elevated ALT levels.