Efficacy and safety of entecavir versus adefovir in chronic hepatitis B patients with hepatic decompensation: A randomized, open‐label study

hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. At 5 years, survival of patients with decompensated cirrhosis was 14%, compared to 84% for patients with compensated cirrhosis 1 • Suppression of viral replication with antiviral therapy has been shown to result in clinical improvement and increased survival 2,3 • Interferons are contraindicated in this patient population 4,5 • Data on the safety and efficacy of nucleos(t)ide therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and decompensated liver disease are limited • Entecavir (ETV) has demonstrated superior virologic, histologic and biochemical efficacy compared to lamivudine (LVD) in nucleoside-naive patients with CHB and compensated liver disease at Week 48 6,7 • Long-term ETV therapy resulted in durable suppression of viral replication and regression of fibrosis/cirrhosis in CHB patients with compensated liver disease 8 • We present Week 48 results from a randomized, open-label, comparative study of ETV versus adefovir (ADV) in CHB patients with decompensated liver disease