Feel healthy! Should I take VIREAD now?

[kapcio]

Hi,

I'm 28 diagnosed with chronic Hepatitis B from time when I was born
I'm doing regular check-ups of my liver, recently had an biopsy with following results
Blood test(bilirubin 1.3 mg/dl, ALAT: 16, ASAT 25)
Fibroscan: siffness: 5.2
Biopsy: fibriosis: 1, in  Desmet scale: grade 2
viremia: 6 month ago 12k  copies now 7k copies

The doctor prescribed me Viread for one year. I'm little afraid I heard that when I start to take it I have to continue it forever(although doctor did not said that)
Do you think its a good way to go? Or maybe should I wait little bit or ask for Interferon therapy?

Thanks for reploy

[kapcio]

Hey Stef,
I consulted my results with another doctor and he decided that with fibrosis 1, HBSAg ~50k and viral load 7k and ALAT ASAT normal it does not make sense to do any therepy.
What puzzles me is that doctor said I'm not a good candidate to interferon therapy as my body can produce antbodies to limit the virus impact.
I read your posts and you recommend to many people to do 3y analog + interferon or/and alinia that this can clean the virus completly. Is it different approach than doctors suggest where they try to limit virus load and liver damage?
Do you think it makes sense in my case to ask for such therapy?(3y analog + interferon) or it makes sense to buy alinia by myself and ask for interferon therapy when HBSag will drop?
Can you give me some links to the researches about the combination treatments? (like one 2009 in Pisa you mentioned in some post) so I can show them to my doctors

[kapcio]

How do you now I should take Viread for 17 years if it is even not that long on the market? The research papers are usually with 48 weeks treatment(http://depts.washington.edu/hepstudy/hepB/mgmt/agents/discussion.html#ref)
I have the HBs Antigen quantity 45000 IU/ml

I think that maybe I should stay with observation now and with next check(may 2015) I will ask for Interferon therapy. What do you think?

[luckyman316]

There is no way your doctor should be prescribing this for "only a year", especially for a chronic case. First off, even if you take it for a year, there is a chance that the virus may not even got undetectable after the year is up. Secondly, if you ever stop this and you are not cured, the virus could potentially come back at a worse rate than it did before. As Stef mention, 17 years is the cure rate on medication alone. Please ask your doctor why he only wants to prescribe this for a year and yes, switch doctors if he doesn't give this to you longer. Let us know what your doctor says. Thanks!

[grmr]

hi kapcio, you've my same age.. i am also hbv+ since Birth and haven done 2 ifn courses but i was not responding..

are you eag +ve or eag -ve?

[stef2011]

for peginterferon therapy you need hbsag quantitative in iu/ml, hbeag/hbeab and hbv genotype.this will tell you if there is any chance to clear hbv, if not it is best to take tdf for at least 3-5years and then pegintf add on, usually tdf is able to rescue t cells activity by that time or wait more years if hbsag is still higher than 1000-1500iu/ml.tdf is able to reduce hbsag between 5 to 10years on a good number of patients

when hbvdna und on antivirals and hbsag less than 1000iu/ml add on of peginterferon has a clearance rate very high studies found rates from 60 to 91%

[stef2011]

change doctor right away, it does make no sense to prescribe these antivirals for a year and is of course only a damage for the patient

the cure is about 17years of these antivirals or 5 to 10 years of tenofovir plus peginterferon add on to rescue immune system and clear hbv before 17years

clearly this doctor doesn t know anything about hbv