ABSTRACT

Introduction

The treatment evidence for entecavir-treated chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients without maintaining of virologic response (MVR, defined as persistent HBV DNA <20 IU/mL during therapy) remains uncertain. We aimed to determine the relationship between non-MVR and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) risk in entecavir-treated CHB patients.

Methods

A cohort of 1447 entecavir-treated CHB patients were enrolled. Multivariate and propensity score-based inverse probability weighting (IPW) model was performed to estimate the effect of MVR on HCC.

Results

During a median follow-up of 5 years, 214 (14.8%) patients occurred with non-MVR. Non-MVR patients had a higher risk of HCC [the IPW model: hazard ratio (HR) = 3.59, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.23–5.75] than MVR patients, especially in those with cirrhosis (HR = 4.60, 95% CI: 2.81–7.56) and the high HCC score by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (HR = 4.35, 95% CI: 2.58–7.32). MVR patients with transient (HR = 4.72, 95% CI: 1.98–11.24) or persistent (HR = 12.16, 95% CI: 3.58–41.31) abnormal ALT after virologic response had higher HCC hazard.

Conclusions

Our study indicated an elevated HCC probability for entecavir-treated CHB patients with Non-MVR, especially for those with cirrhosis or a high predicted score at baseline. For MVR patients, the trajectories of ALT after virologic response suggested different HCC risks.