National Strategy for the Prevention and Control of Viral Hepatitis
Dr. Howard Koh, the Assistant Secretary for Health, gave the President’s Choice Lecture at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) in Boston this month, where he spoke about the U.S. administration’s response to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on viral hepatitis. Dr. Koh took the initiative to convene the first viral hepatitis interagency work group to look at what is being done across all Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies for this growing epidemic. A “National Strategy for the Control of Viral Hepatitis and Liver Cancer” that builds upon the IOM report is being developed by the HHS working group and is slated for publication in early 2011. Learn more »
HBV Drug Therapy Okay for Pregnant Women
Pregnant women with active hepatitis B infection can be safely and effectively treated with telbivudine (Tyzeka), researchers reported at the 2010 annual AASLD meeting. A study involving more than 80 women found that just over half of the women given telbivudine achieved a complete virologic response right before delivery compared with none of the controls, according to Calvin Pan, MD, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Flushing, N.Y., and colleagues. There has been a controversy over whether pregnant women with hepatitis B should be treated, mainly due to concerns over the safety of the fetus. Learn more »
HBV Reactivation and Rituximab:
A Complex Clinical Challenge
HBV reactivation is a serious and often fatal complication of rituximab-based therapy that has led to a black box warning on the package insert. Researchers report, “The importance of HBV reactivation is two-fold. First, symptomatic hepatitis flare carries a high mortality rate, which has ranged from 5 to 40% in various reports. Second, HBV reactivation, if it occurs prior to completion of chemotherapy, will likely result in substantial delays in the delivery of potentially curative chemotherapy for the underlying malignancy…such delay is detrimental to long-term cancer-specific outcome.” Read Full Article »
From Podium to Practice:
Updates in HBV Treatment
Nov. 2 – Capsule Summaries of key oral and poster presentations from the 2010 AASLD Meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver have been selected by leading experts in the field. Learn more »
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