About 5% of the population worldwide (approximately 400 million people) is infected hepatitis B virus (HBV). Over time, 15-40% of chronic HBV-infected people developed cirrhosis. Mortality due to liver failure or other complications of cirrhosis or liver cancer is a global problem. There are about 0.5 million people newly with diagnosed liver cancer annually worldwide, HBV is one of leading causes of liver cancer, especially in the Western Pacific (in which includes Viet Nam). Limitation of HBV infection and treatment of chronic hepatitis B are important for the prevention of cirrhosis and liver cancer in areas with high HBV-infected rate. Comparison with drugs for chronic hepatitis B treatment, telbividine is a novel medicine that was approved recently for clinical trials. The article gave some results of preclinical, phase I/II, IIb, III trials and of study comparing tebivudine with adefovir dipivoxil. The mechanisms of action, pharmacokinetics, side-effects and anti-drug mutations of tebivudine were also mentioned. The author concluded that tebivudine had relatively high possibility of inhibiting replications, had effects for treatment of both positive and negative HBeAg chronic hepatitis B groups.
Chronic hepatitis B ; tebivudine