[Treatment of chronic hepatitis B with lymphoblastoid alpha interferon]

Thirty-five patients with active chronic hepatitis B (ACH-B) were evaluated. They were in stable replicative phase (HBeAg +; DNA polymerase and ALT stable in two determinations at least one month apart) and had not been infected by delta virus or HIV-1. Thirty-four patients were heterosexual and no patient was a drug abuser except one. The 23 initial cases were followed up for 15 months without therapy. The subsequent 12 cases were treated with maximal doses of 2.5 megaunits/m2 of lymphoblastoid alpha interferon (IFN-L) daily for two weeks and three times a week during 10 more weeks. While in the controls only two cases (8.69%) lost the DNA-polymerase activity and HBeAg, 5 treated patients (41.66%; p less than 0.05) developed seroconversion to nonreplicative phase. No patient from the control series lost the HBsAg; however, this happened in 2 treated patients (16.66%). These results show that IFN-L is effective in heterosexual patients with ACH-B in replicative phase without delta virus or HIV-I co-infection.