Background: There is no standard management of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with suboptimal response to nucleoside/nucleotide analogues (NAs). This study aimed to evaluate two different NA combination therapies in patients with suboptimal response to adefovir (ADV).
Methods: In this study, 72 CHB patients with suboptimal response to ADV were assessed, with 37 patients receiving lamivudine plus ADV (group A) and 35 patients receiving telbivudine plus ADV (group B).
Results: Baseline characteristics between two groups were similar. At month 12, rates of biochemical response (BR) and virological response (VR) were similar between groups A and B (17/19 versus 18/20 for BR, [P=0.269] and 30/37 versus 31/35 for VR [P=0.377]), and cumulative rates of serological response were greater in group B than in group A (10/26 versus 2/28 in hepatitis B e antigen [HBeAg] loss [P=0.006] and 7/26 versus 1/28 in HBeAg/hepatitis B e antibody seroconversion [P=0.022]). After 12-month treatment, 8.1% (3/37) of patients in group A and 5.7% (2/35) of patients in group B had VR; among patients in group A, two had rtM204V/I and rtL180M and one had rtN236T, whereas the two patients in group B had rtM204I+rtL180M.
Conclusions: Both combination therapies led to a significant decrease in HBV DNA. HBeAg serological outcomes were higher with telbivudine plus ADV combination therapy.