Thursday, November 15, 2018

In Older Hep B Patients, Carcinoma Surveillance Is Advised

Medscape Medical News > Conference News > AASLD 2018
In Older Hep B Patients, Carcinoma Surveillance Is Advised
Laird Harrison
November 15, 2018 

SAN FRANCISCO — Surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) should continue in patients older than 50 years, even after they have undergone 5 years of therapy for chronic hepatitis B, according to an analysis of the PAGE-B cohort.

But the risk for the cancer is low enough in younger patients — except for those with cirrhosis — that surveillance might not be warranted, said George Papatheodoridis, MD, PhD, from Athens University Medical School in Greece.

"It will save monitoring in some patients," he told Medscape Medical News.

Long-term monotherapy with entecavir (Baraclude, Bristol-Myers Squibb) or tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (Viread, Gilead) suppresses the hepatitis B virus and improves liver lesions, so the survival rate in patients without compensated cirrhosis is comparable to that in the general population, Papatheodoridis explained here at The Liver Meeting 2018...

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