[Long-term therapy with nucleoside analog entecavir (baraclude) in patients with chronic hepatitis B]

Complications of HBV infection include cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), which together cause over 500.000 deaths annually. There are many risk factors of disease progression as: age, sex, comorbidities, family history, HBV genotypes, viral load, HBeAg status, disease stage etc. Chronic hepatitis B patients with high viral load have the highest risk of progressing to these life-threatening complications. The management of chronic hepatitis B currently rests with long-term therapy using nucleoside analogs. The goal of this therapy is sustained HBV DNA suppression, improving quality of life and preventing progression of the disease to cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, HCC and death. The major limitations of long-term therapy is antiviral resistance. Entecavir provides sustained viral suppression and histological benefit with minimal resistance during long-term treatment of chronic hepatitis B, it is well-tolerable and has good safety profile, simple dosing and simple monitoring requirements.