Short-term antiviral therapy for CHB results in the
suppression of viral replication21,22 and has been asso-
ciated with improvements of liver histology in
randomized clinical trials.23 Treatment for 3 years with
the oral antiviral agent lamivudine has also been
shown to slow the clinical progression of liver disease
in patients with advanced fibrosis and cirrhosis.24
However, in this landmark study, disease progression
was assessed clinically and not histologically, and se-
rum HBV DNA results were not reported. Longer
term histological data exist from studies in nucleoside-
naive CHB patients treated with lamivudine or adefo-
vir.25-27 The emergence of antiviral drug resistance
negatively affected the histological benefits that were
observed with lamivudine, and the impact of resistance
on histological response was not reported in the adefo-
vir studies.