Chronic hepatitis B: Advances in treatment

Core Tip

Core tip: Patients with chronic hepatitis B are a heterogeneous population and require different management strategies. In clinical practice, several baseline factors, related to the patient, drug, stage of liver disease, comorbidities, lifestyle factors, coinfections and profile of hepatitis B virus infection, should be taken into consideration in order to individually optimize therapy. Surface antigen of the hepatitis B virus quantification is a potential new biomarker for treatment individualization and response-guided therapy. In the last two decades, the availability of potent oral antivirals changed the natural history of chronic hepatitis B; however, the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has not been abolished and thus regular HCC surveillance in high risk patients is required.