Effects of prednisolone combined with antiviral therapy on patients with early severe hepatitis B

Objective To observe the effect of prednisolone combined with antiviral therapy on patients with early severe hepatitis B.Methods Sixty cases of early severe hepatitis B were randomly divided into treatment group and control group(30 cases).Patients in the control group were given conventional medical treatment and anti-virus with telbivudine,while patients in the treatment group were given prednisolone 30 mg in addition to the treatment in control group,when the TBIL decreased to one half,prednisolone was reduced by 5 mg every one week until the withdraw; Serum biochemical values changes,adverse reactions and complications in the two groups were observed before and after treatment.Results In the treatment group,the TBIL was obviously lower than that in the control group after treatment,there was significant difference between the two groups (P ＜ 0.05).The disappearing time of clinical symptoms in treatment group was obviously shortened.But there were no significant differences in the normalization rate of ALT,PT activity level and the negative conversion rate of serum HBV-DNA at 8 weeks later(P ＞ 0.05).Conclusions Prednisolone combined with antiviral therapy is safe and economical and has a remarkable effect on improving the clinical symptoms of early severe hepatitis B,decreasing the level of serum TBIL.So it prevent the further development,but can not significantly improve the normalization rate of ALT,coagulation function and the negative conversion rate of HBV-DNA. Key words: Early severe hepatitis B;  Antiviral therapy;  Prednisolone