The study of efficacy and side effects of telbivudine and lamivudine for treatment of patients with chronic hepatitis B

Objective:To investigate the efficacy and side effects of telbivudine and lamivudine for therapy of chronic hepatitis B for 1 year.Methods:In this random and control study,the efficacy of telbivudine and lamivudine treatments were compared in 240 patients who consisted of 120 cases with HBeAg-negative and 120 cases with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B.The patients were randomly assigned to a daily 600mg telbivudine treatment group or daily 100mg lamivudine group for 52weeks.Results:At week 52,mean reductions of serum HBV DNA from baseline and undetectable serum HBV DNA rates among patients with HBeAg-negative and HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B were significantly greater in the telbivudine-treated patients than in the lamivudine-treated group(P0.05).Viral resistance and viral breakthrough was significant common in lamivudine compared with telbivudine(P0.05).Among patients with HBeAg-positive chronic hepatitis B,telbivudine was significant superior to lamivudine with respect to loss of HBeAg(P0.05) and seroconversion of HBeAg(P0.05).Telbivudine was well-tolerated with an adverse event profile similar to that of lamivudine.There was no significant difference in ALT normalization at week 52 between patients treated with tebivudine and lamivudine.Conclusion:Telbivudine is significant superior to lamivudine with respect to strong suppression of HBV DNA replication and less resistance to the nucleosides as well as viral breakthrough.