Interferon alpha treatment leads to a high rate of hepatitis B surface antigen seroconversion in Chinese children with chronic hepatitis B

• DOI: 10.1111/jvh.13165
• Publication Date: 2019-08-05T09:30:41Z
• Authors: Huimin Fan; Luping Lin; Shijie Jia; Min Xie; Chun Luo; Xinghua Tan; Ruosu Ying; Yujuan Guan; Feng Li
• Keywords: HBeAg; Seroconversion; Pegylated interferon; Hepatitis B

Abstract Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (CHB) in children remains a public health challenge despite significant success programme is established to prevent mother‐to‐child transmission. In particular, CHB Chinese are mostly acquired through vertical transmission, which differs from the common route reported other countries and regions. This situation has resulted high endemic prevalence of adults. Thus, successful treatment with will development advanced liver diseases late adulthood. However, there still no consensus on clinical guideline treat paediatric CHB. this study, we evaluated potential interferon alpha (IFNa) for A total 41 patients aged 3‐17 years were enrolled retrospective study: 21 treated pegylated (PEG)‐IFNa 20 without served as control group. The rates HBV DNA suppression, e antigen (HBeAg) clearance surface (HBsAg) significantly higher PEG‐IFNa group than ( P < 0.05 at 48 weeks). Unexpectedly, achieved rate HBsAb production, far exceeding outcome documented PEG‐IFNa‐treated Further analysis revealed that younger (3‐6 old) more responsive respect achieving protective level short cycle adolescents (10‐17 old). Overall, these results indicate immune system might have preserved PEG‐IFNa‐mediated mechanism completely HBV, can help design new strategies patients.