Dual Antiretroviral Therapy No Better Than Monotherapy for Chronic Hepatitis B Infection

Entecavir and tenofovir have each proven effective and safe as first-line monotherapy for patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. But dual therapy with these highly potent, oral, antiviral agents has not been evaluated in a large, well-designed study.

Now, investigators have conducted an industry-funded, multicenter, open-label, randomized trial of entecavir (0.5 mg daily) plus tenofovir (300 mg daily) versus entecavir alone in 379 treatment-naïve patients with well-characterized HBeAg-positive HBV infection (264 patients) or HBeAg-negative HBV infection (115 patients). Of these patients, 197 received entecavir plus tenofovir dual therapy, and 182 received entecavir monotherapy.

The primary outcome of HBV DNA viral undetectab…