Massive Awareness Creation On Dangers Of Hepatitis B Ghanaian Times, Ghana - Aug 6, 2008 Hepatitis ?A? or ?B? is a disease which attacks the liver and causes it to swell or inflame. The virus of the ?A? type is transmitted in food causing fever ...
Jaundice incidence steeply rising in CzechRep this year Czech Happenings, Czech Republic - The Health Ministry has provided 1500 combined vaccines against A and B hepatitis free for drug-addicts. One dose costs 900-1500 crowns. ...
Graduate sues company for reneging on job offer China Daily, China - Zhou sued for compensation several months later when the company told him that he was not eligible for the job because he was a hepatitis B virus carrier. ...
New Recommendations To Protect Disaster Survivors Medical News Today (press release), UK - Aug 6, 2008 "Diseases and bacteria that cause disability and death, such as hepatitis B and tetanus, can be prevented by vaccines that are safe, effective and widely ...
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Marketing SF Hep B Free AsianWeek, CA - Aug 5, 2008 On the marketing committee, Lee is working with California Pacific Medical Center on a new creative hepatitis B awareness ad campaign for radio and ...
Lamivudine treatment can restore T cell responsiveness in chronic hepatitis B. - C Boni, A Bertoletti, A Penna, A Cavalli, M Pilli, … - Journal of Clinical Investigation, 1998 - pubmedcentral.nih.gov ... HLA A2 restricted cytotoxic T lymphocyte responses to multiple hepatitisB surface
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Cytotoxic T lymphocytes inhibit hepatitis B virus gene expression by a noncytolytic mechanism in … - LG Guidotti, K Ando, MV Hobbs, T Ishikawa, L … - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the …, 1994 - pubmedcentral.nih.gov ... Abstract. DuringhepatitisB virus (HBV) infection, distinct host-virus interactions
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Source: Google Scholar
Lamivudine in order to prevent hepatitis B relapse during chemotherapy
A study on treating hepatitis B patients who have cancer with an antiviral drug at the same time as they undergo chemotherapy found that the treatment helped prevent relapse of hepatitis B.
Patients who develop hepatocellular carcinoma ( HCC ), a type of liver cancer caused by the hepatitis B virus, have up to a 55 percent chance of having the virus reactivated during chemotherapy. The idea of preemptively treating these patients with the antiviral drug Lamivudine ( Epivir ) in order to prevent hepatitis B relapse and it varying complications is promising but has never been investigated in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.
Researchers led by Jeong Won Jang, at the Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, conducted a prospective randomized study on pretreating HCC patients undergoing chemotherapy with Lamivudine between January 2004 and February 2005.
The study involved 36 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who were given the drug while undergoing transarterial chemo-lipiodolization ( TACL ) chemotherapy and a control group of 37 patients who underwent the chemotherapy without receiving Lamivudine. The chemotherapy was continued every month without any limit on the number of cycles until the tumors disappeared, while treatment with lamivudine began with the chemotherapy and continued for 12 months following its completion.
In total, 43 percent of the patients in the control group developed overall clinical hepatitis during the follow-up period, compared to 17 percent of the patients who took Lamivudine.
In addition, there was a significantly higher incidence of severe hepatitis in the control group and the researchers established the level of viral load ( >104 copies/ml ) that predicted whether a patient would have a relapse of hepatitis B.
In addition to demonstrating that treatment with Lamivudine significantly reduced hepatitis B reactivation, allowing chemotherapy to continue in these cancer patients, the study suggests that Lamivudine therapy decreases the severity of clinical hepatitis if it develops during chemotherapy.
" The beneficial effects of preemptive therapy on the severity of hepatitis most probably result from an elimination of any potential risk arising from viral reactivation," the authors state.
While previous studies have shown a higher viral load as a predictor of hepatitis B reactivation, the lower cutoff in the current study was identified as a better predictor and the authors urge the use of a highly sensitive test to detect and measure viral load in order to identify patients at the greatest risk of hepatitis B reactivation.
In those patients with lower viral loads, it would still be beneficial to closely monitor virological and biochemical changes when they are undergoing repeated courses of chemotherapy, since the study demonstrated that even lower viral loads are associated with an approximately 30 percent risk of viral reactivation.
Although the study did not examine long-term survival in the patients who took Lamivudine, the authors conclude: " Given that preemptive antiviral therapy ameliorates the hepatic morbidity seen during transarterial chemotherapy and facilitates further chemotherapy without disruptions in the treatment schedules, the expectation would be for an increased chance of survival with this approach."
