Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2025. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Hepatol. May 27, 2025; 17(5): 104519
Published online May 27, 2025. doi: 10.4254/wjh.v17.i5.104519
Deep sequencing analysis of hepatitis B virus in patients with incomplete response to tenofovir alafenamide fumarate treatment
Norie Yamada, Hitomi Igarashi, Asako Murayama, Michihiro Suzuki, Kiyomi Yasuda, Masumichi Saito, Masanori Isogawa, Takanobu Kato
Norie Yamada, Michihiro Suzuki, Kiyomi Yasuda, Department of Internal Medicine, Center for Liver Diseases, Seizankai Kiyokawa Hospital, Tokyo 166-0004, Japan
Norie Yamada, Hitomi Igarashi, Asako Murayama, Masumichi Saito, Masanori Isogawa, Takanobu Kato, Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan
Masumichi Saito, Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan
Author contributions: Yamada N and Kato T conceived of this study; Yamada N, Suzuki M and Yasuda K were the patient’s attending physicians; Yamada N, Igarashi H, Murayama A, Saito M and Kato T carried out the experiments; Yamada N and Kato T discussed and interpreted the results; Yamada N and Kato T wrote the manuscript; Isogawa M supervised the experiments and project; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), No. JP22fk0310503.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committees of our institutions (approval numbers: 0167 and 1081 from Seizankai Kiyokawa Hospital and the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, respectively).
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was obtained from each patient.
Conflict-of-interest statement: None of the authors have anything to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The dataset will be provided by the corresponding author (takato@niid.go.jp) upon request.
Open Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Takanobu Kato, MD, PhD, Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, Toyama, 1-23-1, Tokyo 162-8640, Japan. takato@niid.go.jp
Received: December 24, 2024
Revised: March 14, 2025
Accepted: May 10, 2025
Published online: May 27, 2025
Processing time: 154 Days and 23 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF) is a potent treatment for chronic hepatitis B with low resistance rates. In this study, two TAF-incomplete responders were investigated. In these patients, mutations of rtL269I and combinations of rtT118A/rtL220I were detected in hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA predominantly as associated with incomplete response to TAF treatment. The deep sequencing of infected HBV DNA and RNA effectively identified responsible mutations, emphasizing its utility in understanding the association between emerged mutations and incomplete responses to TAF and guiding treatment strategies for incomplete responders.