Hepatitis

A new protocol for delivering postexposure prophylaxis resulted in relatively high rates of contact tracing, timely treatment, and adherence.

This year's Retrovirus Conference returned to Boston, and despite predictably wintry weather, the premier scientific HIV meeting again attracted researchers and clinicians from all over . . .

Active viral coinfection may alter the production of hepatitis B surface antibody.

A final statement was released in March from the First European Consensus Conference on the Treatment of Chronic Hepatitis B and C (HBV and HCV) . . .

Most patients with isolated hepatitis B core antibody have no evidence of prior HBV infection and may benefit from vaccination.

Several findings presented at the 14th Retrovirus Conference could influence how we treat patients coinfected with viral hepatitis.

New studies advance our knowledge of the natural history of HCV infection — and the reliability of noninvasive tests for liver fibrosis — in HIV/HCV-coinfected patients.

In HIV-HBV coinfected individuals, initial treatment with tenofovir + 3TC and sequential monotherapy with tenofovir after 3TC failure produced similar viral suppression rates, at least in the intermediate term.

New studies presented at IAS addressed the optimal duration of HCV treatment, early predictors of treatment response, and risk factors for liver-related mortality.

On February 3, Roche Products, Ltd. sent a letter to investigators involved in saquinavir studies to alert them that saquinavir/ritonavir should not be coadministered with . . .

In the Women’s Interagency HIV Study, only 2% of HIV-infected women who tested positive for isolated antibody to hepatitis B core antigen had evidence of occult HBV infection.

In HIV-infected patients who are also infected with HBV and HCV, treatment for one type of viral hepatitis does not appear to cause rebound of the other.

Hepatitis A vaccine elicited protective antibodies in most HIV-infected people, although vaccine performance was relatively impaired in late-stage infection.

In this retrospective study, hepatitis G coinfection was associated with a slower rate of progression to AIDS.

In some patients coinfected with HIV and Hepatitis B, long-term treatment with 3TC may breed resistance mutations in the hepatitis virus genome and cause exacerbations . . .

Hepatitis A vaccine had no apparent adverse effects after one year of follow-up, and may become part of a routine immunization series given to some . . .

Risk of HIV transmission by percutaneous exposure to the blood of an HIV-infected patient is approximately 0.3%. Rates of hepatitis C transmission are less well . . .

Four people contracted both HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) through solid-organ transplants this year, according to the Chicago Tribune. The transplants took place . . .

On April 30, 2007, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revised its guidelines for using entecavir in patients coinfected with HIV and hepatitis . . .

As patients live longer, hepatitis C virus begins to take a toll on this heavily coinfected population.