Tenofovir for Treatment-Experienced Patients with Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Tenofovir has shown efficacy as first-line therapy for treatment-naive patients with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection (JW Gastroenterol Jan 23 2009). To evaluate whether tenofovir is effective in treatment-experienced patients — those who failed to respond to nucleoside/nucleotide analogues (NAs) — European investigators conducted a multicenter, retrospective cohort study involving 131 HBV-monoinfected patients who failed therapy with lamivudine, adefovir, or both of these NAs.

All patients demonstrated persistent viremia during prior therapy (defined as an HBV DNA level of ≥4 log₁₀ copies/mL) and were switched to tenofovir (300 mg daily for ≥6 months). Most patients (56%) had received sequential therapy with lamivudine or adefovir,…