Adding peg-interferon to a fully suppressive nucleos(t)ide regimen leads to rapid decrease of quantitative HBsAg in some hepatitis B patients

Objective: Suppression of HBV-DNA by nucleos(t)ide therapy effectively avoids disease progression but requires long-term medication. Therefore, it would desirable to achieve immunological control which is hampered by immunotolerance due to high antigen levels. HBsAg levels can be reduced by long-term nucleos(t)ide treatment, but interferon is known to be much more effective. It is of interest whether the addition of peg-interferon to a fully suppressive nucleos(t)ide treatment may induce immunological control. Methods: We observed HBsAg levels of twelve patients who had decided to receive additional peg-interfer…