Background and aims<\/p>\n
The impact of baseline liver fibrosis severity on the effectiveness of pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN) combined with nucleos(t)ide analogs (NAs) in the treatment of hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive chronic hepatitis B (CHB) has not been fully clarified. This study aimed to investigate whether the effectiveness of this combination therapy differed according to the severity of baseline liver fibrosis.<\/p>\n
Methods<\/p>\n
A total of 172 HBeAg-positive CHB patients receiving Peg-IFN plus NAs were stratified according to non-invasive fibrosis markers (aspartate aminotransferase-to-platelet ratio index [APRI] and fibrosis-4 index [FIB-4]) into three groups: no significant fibrosis (n = 75), significant fibrosis (n = 70), and advanced fibrosis\/cirrhosis (n = 27). The primary outcome was the HBeAg clearance rate at 24 months of treatment. Secondary outcomes included the hepatitis B surface antigen<\/a> (HBsAg) clearance rate, the rate of HBsAg level decline > 1.0 log10, virological response, and improvement in non-invasive fibrosis indices.<\/p>\n Results<\/p>\n At 24 months, HBsAg clearance and complete virological response rates were comparable across the three groups. Cumulative HBeAg clearance rates differed significantly (log-rank\u00a0P\u00a0= 0.027): 16.00%, 30.00%, and 40.74% in the three groups, respectively, with Group 3 higher than Groups 1 and 2. Multivariate analysis identified a significantly higher likelihood of HBeAg clearance in Group 3 versus Group 1 (adjusted odds ratio = 6.373, 95% confidence interval: 1.288\u201331.531,\u00a0P\u00a0= 0.023). Additionally, analysis of liver fibrosis outcomes showed that patients with more severe baseline fibrosis had a higher proportion of improvement in non-invasive fibrosis indices, with 95.00% in Group 3, while 42.98% of the overall cohort achieved fibrosis improvement.<\/p>\n Conclusions<\/p>\n This study demonstrates that baseline liver fibrosis severity is a key independent factor in predicting treatment response to Peg-IFN\u03b1 plus NAs in patients with HBeAg-positive CHB. Patients with more advanced fibrosis achieved higher rates of HBeAg clearance and substantial improvements in non-invasive fibrosis indices. The robustness of these primary conclusions was supported by sensitivity analyses. These results suggest that baseline fibrosis assessment has clinical value in optimizing patient selection for Peg-IFN-based combination therapy. Future prospective, multicenter studies with long-term follow-up and incorporation of histological or multi-omics approaches are warranted to validate these findings and elucidate the underlying mechanisms.<\/p>\n Source:<\/p>\n Journal reference:<\/p>\n Zhang, Y., et al. (2026). Baseline Liver Fibrosis Severity Predicts Superior HBeAg Clearance and Fibrosis Reversal following Peg-IFN\u03b1 plus Nucleos(t)ide Analog Therapy in HBeAg-positive Chronic Hepatitis B Patients. Journal of Clinical and Translational Hepatology. DOIL 10.14218\/jcth.2026.00093.\u00a0https:\/\/www.xiahepublishing.com\/2310-8819\/JCTH-2026-00093<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Background and aims The impact of baseline liver fibrosis severity on the effectiveness of pegylated interferon (Peg-IFN) combined…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13216,13448,19084,134,19011,33287,30243,61283,4255,111,139,69,1518,3422],"class_list":["post-609517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-antigen","tag-chronic","tag-fibrosis","tag-health","tag-hepatitis","tag-hepatitis-b","tag-hepatology","tag-interferon","tag-liver","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-research","tag-therapy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}