title: Use of Current and New Endpoints in the Evaluation of Experimental Hepatitis B Therapeutics.
abstract: New hepatitis B virus (HBV) therapies are expected to have breakthrough benefit for patients. HBV functional cure is sustained hepatitis B surface antigen loss and anti-HBs gain, with normalization of serum aminotransferases off therapy. Virologic or complete cure additionally includes loss of HBV covalently closed circular DNA. Currently available endpoints of therapy are inadequate to evaluate the efficacy of many of the new therapeutics. Therefore, either new ways of using the existing virologic endpoints and laboratory values or entirely new biomarkers are needed. In this review, we discuss the currently used endpoints, potential new endpoints, as well as what new markers are needed to assess the ability of HBV therapeutics to achieve functional and virologic cure in various phases of HBV infection. In addition, we discuss how patient selection from differing phases of HBV impacts the choice of HBV drug(s) needed to achieve cure.
authors.affiliation: Hepatitis B Foundation and Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: Timothy M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Block
authors.affiliation: Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Doherty Institute, Melbourne, Australia.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Locarnini
authors.affiliation: Alaska Native Health Center, Anchorage, USA.
authors.forename: Brian J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.affiliation: Immunology Section, Liver Diseases Branch, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rehermann
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, USA.
authors.forename: Marion G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Peters
mesh_terms: D015415:Biomarkers / Q000032:analysis*; D023381:Endpoint Determination; D019694:Hepatitis B, Chronic / Q000188:drug therapy*; D006801:Humans; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers
keywords: immunology; pathology; therapeutics; virology; markers