Tenofovir is superior to entecavir in treatment naïve HBeAg Positive chronic hepatitis B Patients

Abstract Background and aim Chronic Hepatitis B (CHB) is a global health problem affecting around 400 million of people worldwide.Two available first line antiviral drugs are Tenofovir (TDF) and Entecavir (ETV).Till date,there are few published reports from India comparing efficacy of TDF and ETV in CHB cases.Therefore, this current study was carried out with an aim to compare the efficacy of ETV and TDF in nucleos(t)ide naive CHB patients. Materials and Methods This retrospective cohort study was carried out in 192 treatment naive chronic hepatitis B cases, who completed 24 months of treatment with either TDF or ETV between March 2015 and August 2017. The primary endpoint of the study was undetectable HBV DNA after 24 months of therapy. Results Out of total 192 CHB patients,38 HBeAg positive and 53 HBeAg negative patients were treated with tenofovir, whereas 40 HBeAg positive and 61 HBeAg negative patients were treated with entecavir. Pre-treatment characteristics at baseline were not statistically different between the TDF and ETV groups.Patients treated with TDF achieved significantly higher complete viral suppression as compared to ETV treated patients (Log rank-7.04, P=0.008) in HBeAg positive CHB during the 24 months follow up time;whereas no significant difference in viral suppression rate could be noticed in HBeAg negative patients(Log rank-0.98,P = 0.38).Both univariate and multivariate analysis by cox proportional hazard modelconfirmed that tenofovir had significant rate of complete viral suppressionin comparison to entecavir in HBeAg positive patients(p Conclusion In our study, tenofovir had more effective antiviral suppressive effect compared to entecavir in HBeAg positive, nucleos(t)ide-naive chronic hepatitis B cases.