Hepatitis B News

• Eliminating Hepatitis by 2030: HHS Releases New Strategic Plan In an effort to counteract alarming trends in rising hepatitis infections, the HHS has developed and released its Viral Hepatitis National Strategic Plan 2021-2025.
  Medscape Medical News, January 15, 2021
• USPSTF Reaffirms Advice on HBV Screening in High-Risk Individuals The USPSTF continues to recommend screening for hepatitis B virus in nonpregnant adolescents and adults at increased risk for HBV infection, concluding with 'moderate certainty' that such screening has moderate net benefit.
  Reuters Health Information, December 15, 2020
• Pediatricians Want Kids To Be Part of COVID Vaccine Trials Although most pediatricians believe the eventual vaccination of children will be crucial to subduing the COVID-19 virus, they're split on how fast to move toward that, says Dr James Campbell.
  Kaiser Health News, December 15, 2020
• AASLD 2020 Aspirin and Statins in Chronic Hepatitis B: It's Complicated Statins play a bigger part than aspirin in reducing risk for hepatocellular carcinoma in patients with hepatitis B, new research shows, and cirrhosis seems to cancel any beneficial effect of aspirin.
  Medscape Medical News, November 19, 2020
• ANAC 2020 HIV PrEP Prescriptions Often Go Unfilled In communities most vulnerable to HIV, pre-exposure prophylaxis could fill the gap. But handing people a prescription isn't enough to make sure they are protected.
  Medscape Medical News, November 17, 2020
• AASLD 2020 Mixed Outcomes in Tenofovir Trial for Chronic Hepatitis B Levels of surface antigen loss were low whether or not patients treated with tenofovir also received interferon, but some patients met criteria for inactive chronic disease after therapy withdrawal.
  Medscape Medical News, November 15, 2020
• Risk Factors Can Help Spot People Who Need Hep D Screening Several risk factors associated with hepatitis D virus (HDV) infection can be used to identify people who should be screened, researchers report.
  Reuters Health Information, November 12, 2020
• HIV Drugs Prevent Type 2 Diabetes, May Be Path to New Therapy An analysis of five databases shows that the NRTIs used to treat HIV and hepatitis B infection are able to prevent diabetes by blocking inflammasone activation; discovery may pave way for new therapeutics.
  Medscape Medical News, October 22, 2020
• Hep B Liver Cancer Risk Comparable With Tenofovir, Entecavir Chronic hepatitis B patients face similar risk liver cancer risks whether treated with tenofovir or entecavir, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis.
  Reuters Health Information, October 12, 2020
• Cornea Donation Restrictions Outdated, Harmful, Study Suggests The length of the bans on donations ― 5 years in the United States and 1 year in Canada ― are unnecessary because of improvements in HIV testing, authors say.
  Medscape Medical News, October 01, 2020
• Hepatocellular Carcinoma Shows Risk Factor Shift The most common form of liver cancer has seen a demographic shift, with incidence highest in the Hispanic population. The good news in HCC is that rates appear to be declining among young men.
  Medscape Medical News, September 25, 2020
• Vaccines Should Be Mandatory for All HCPs, Group Says The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America says all ACIP-recommended vaccines should be required as a condition for employment for physicians and other healthcare workers.
  Medscape Medical News, September 17, 2020
• HCV-Related Liver Cancer Incidence Dropped in US Cohort The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma declined after widespread use of direct-acting antiviral therapies to treat hepatitis C, according to findings from a large population-based study.
  Medscape Medical News, September 16, 2020
• Serum Hep B Virus RNA Levels Useful in Decision to Stop Treatment Patients with chronic hepatitis B who have undetectable serum hepatitis B virus (HBV) RNA can safely undergo cessation of entecavir antiviral treatment, according to a new study.
  Reuters Health Information, August 25, 2020
• Renal Dysfunction Improves Following Tenofovir Type Switch: Study In HIV/HBV-coinfected individuals with renal dysfunction, renal function improves after switching from tenofovir disoproxil fumarate to tenofovir alafenamide, according to results from a prospective study.
  Reuters Health Information, August 18, 2020
• Obesity Epidemic Threatens Effectiveness of Any COVID-19 Vaccine In the US, where at least 4.6 million people have been infected and nearly 155,000 have died, the promise of that vaccine is hampered by a vexing epidemic that long preceded COVID-19: obesity.
  Kaiser Health News, August 06, 2020
• Hepatitis Screening Now for All Patients With Cancer on Therapy All patients with cancer who are candidates for systemic therapy should be screened for hepatitis B, says the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
  Medscape Medical News, August 05, 2020
• Parental Refusal of Neonatal Therapy a Growing Problem Parents who refuse one indicated neonatal preventive therapy often refuse others even when the reasons are different, according to an update at the Pediatric Hospital Medicine 2020 Virtual.
  Medscape Medical News, July 30, 2020
• Vaccine Safety Affirmed in Review of FDA Approvals Vaccines are 'remarkably' safe and the US Food and Drug Administration's approval and postmarketing system is 'robust,' a cohort study reveals.
  Reuters Health Information, July 27, 2020
• Liver Cancer Increase Driven Mainly by NASH in Men Over 60 The global increase in liver cancer has been driven mainly by an increase in fatty liver disease in men over 60 in developed countries, suggests a new analysis.
  Medscape Medical News, March 23, 2020