Efficacy of high dose interferon--alpha treatment of chronic hepatitis B.

Fifteen consecutive Hepatitis B virus chronic hepatitis patients were treated with interferon alfa-2B 10 mu tiw for 5-6 months. All patients could tolerate the side effects without serious complications throughout the treatment period. Overall, 12 cases had normalization of ALT (80%), 7 cases had loss of HbeAg with appearance of anti-Hbe (58.33%) and 2 cases had loss of HbsAg with the presence of antiHBs (13.33%). The response usually associated with improvement in histology and decrease in viral load. These results seemed to be better than other studies with a lower dose. Further study with more patients should be done in the future.