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Evidence summaries

Interferon-Alpha Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis B in Children

Interferon-alpha treatment of children with hepatitis B appears to result in clearance of hepatitis B virus in the short term, but data on clinically important outcomes do not exist. Level of evidence: "B"

A systematic review 1 including 6 RCTs with a total of 240 children aged 1.5 to 17 years was abstracted in DARE. The outcomes assessed were clearance of hepatitis B virus DNA from sera, clearance of hepatitis B e antigen from sera, and normalisation of serum levels of ALT. The results were as follows:

Proportion of HBV DNA clearance: OR = 4.6 (95% CI 2.4 to 8.7).

Proportion of HBeAg clearance: OR = 3.1 (95% CI 0.8 to 12.0).

Proportion of normalisation of ALT levels: OR = 2.3 (95% CI 1.1 to 4.6). Adverse effects occurred in 4.7% of patients. These included neutropenia, persistent fever with artromyalgias and thrombocytopenia.

Comment: The quality of evidence is downgraded by indirectness. Clinically important outcomes (such as survival) were not assessed.

    References

    • Torre D, Tambini R. Interferon-alpha therapy for chronic hepatitis B in children: a meta-analysis. Clin Infect Dis 1996 Jul;23(1):131-7. [PubMed][DARE]

Primary/Secondary Keywords