| [ Summary ] |
In Western countries, the standard duration of interferon administration for chronic hepatitis B is generally accepted to be more than three months, we derived this information from analyzing the results of many published papers. On the other hand, in Japan, the standard duration of interferon administration is limited to twenty eight days, due to the policy of the medical examination and treatment insurance. As a result in Western countries, a loss of HBsAg is observed after interferon therapy, but in Japan, this phenomenon is not observed. This difference may be due to different characteristics of patients, and also due to the different duration of interferon administration. Recently, in Japan, a few studies have reported the results of six months of interferon administration, but the results have not shown sufficient effectiveness, compared to the results from conventional short-term treatment. Further studies are necessary to evaluate whether long-term administration is more effective for Japanese patients with chronic hepatitis B or not. |