Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2007

B oth newly diagnosed Hepatitis B patients and those who have previously taken Adefovir, a widely prescribed treatment for the disease, will see improved viral suppression with Telbivudine, according to a new study presented at the Asian Pacific Association for the Study of Liver (APASL) meeting in Kyoto. The data for Hong Kong was presented by Prof. Henry Chan, professor in the Department of the Medicine and Therapeutics and director of the Centre for Liver Health at CUHK. It complements the other data presentations showing the benefits of Telbivudine over Lamivudine, the most widely prescribed treatment for Hepatitis B. Research also proves that Telbivudine provides rapid and sustained Hepatitis B virus (HBV) suppression in patients. The finding comes from a study of 135 patients with Hepatitis B who were treated with either Telbivudine or Adefovir for 24 weeks. Both groups were tested for HBV in their blood. In the Adefovir group, only 22% reached a target reduction in HBV (1,000 copies/ml) versus nearly half (49%) of the Telbivudine group. Of the 78% of Adefovir patients who did not reach target viral suppression at 24 weeks, those who switched to Telbivudine saw 10 times greater incremental HBV suppression than patients who remained on Adefovir for 52 weeks. This research is a multi-centred study conducted by 16 centres throughout the world. CUHK was the leading author of the work. The results of the study clearly shows that Telbivudine has stronger anti-viral effect than Adefovir. The study is important in that it provides head-to-head comparision of anti-viral drugs (comparison of results between studies always has problems of selection difference and design differences). It offers the possibility of using Telbivudine to treat patients who have sub-optimal response to Adefovir. It also proves conceptually that one can change to a stronger anti-viral agent if the response is sub-optimal with another agent. Study Shows Telbivudine’s Superiority in Hepatitis B Treatment Study on Hepatitis B Treatment 37