@article{3099503,
    title = "Hepatitis B e antigen-negative chronic hepatitis B: Natural history and
treatment",
    author = "Hadziyannis, SJ and Papatheodoridis, GV",
    journal = "Seminars in Liver Disease",
    year = "2006",
    volume = "26",
    number = "2",
    pages = "130-141",
    publisher = "THIEME MEDICAL PUBL INC",
    issn = "0272-8087, 1098-8971",
    doi = "10.1055/s-2006-939751",
    keywords = "chronic hepatitis B; interferon-alfa; lamivudine; adefovir; entecavir",
    abstract = "Hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B evolves in
the natural history of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection linked
with selection of nonproducing HBeAg but replication-competent HBV
mutants, and may have a potentially severe and progressive course.
Effective suppression of HBV replication is the main therapeutic target.
Sustained off-therapy responses are rare with treatment of finite
duration, except perhaps for interferon-based therapies, which induce
such responses in a sizeable, yet small proportion of patients.
Eventually, the majority of patients will be treated with long-term oral
antiviral therapy, which improves patients’ outcome but is associated
with progressively increasing rates of viral resistance. The long-term
resistance profile of adefovir is significantly better than that of
lamivudine (LMV), whereas data for entecavir currently are limited to 2
years, with resistance developing in LMV-resistant but not in
treatment-naive patients. Combination therapy with adefovir added to LMV
in LMV-resistant patients is extremely effective; cases of
adefovir-resistance have not been reported to date."
}