[Pursuit of anti-hepatitis B virus therapy]

The World Health Organization (WHO) has put forward the strategic goal of eliminating viral hepatitis as a major public health threat by 2030, and the research and development of new treatment for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients is an important part of this. In recent years, functional or clinical cure marked by HBsAg clearance and continuous undetectable HBV DNA has gradually become an ideal treatment endpoint recommended by clinical guidelines at home and abroad. Studies have shown that CHB patients who achieved long-term viral suppression after nucleoside analogues (NAs), adding or switching to interferons may have the potential to improve the clearance rate of HBsAg. However, the HBsAg conversion rate of patients in each treatment group in these studies was still low, and a reasonable combined therapy strategy and suitable patient population need to be further explored. In addition, some new drugs are being developed in pursuit of a CHB cure, though many clinical trials of new drugs are still based from a long-term treatment of NAs. Therefore, NAs antiviral therapy remains the cornerstone at this stage for CHB.