Hepatitis B Virus RNA as a Biomarker for Safe Antiviral Discontinuation: A Prospective Study of Nucleos(t)ide Analogue Withdrawal
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Withdrawal of nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy is associated with hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss and sustained off-therapy partial cure (normal alanine aminotransferase [ALT] ≤30 U/L for males and ≤20 U/L for females with hepatitis B virus [HBV] DNA <2000 IU/mL) but should be offered only to those most likely to benefit. HBV RNA may be useful for risk stratification. METHODS: The Hepatitis B Research Network Immune-Active Trial prospectively evaluated treatment with tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) for 192 weeks ± peginterferon alfa-2a for the initial 24 weeks, followed by protocolized withdrawal of TDF among eligible participants (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01369212). HBV RNA was evaluated as a predictor of ALT flares and sustained partial cure (HBV DNA <2000 IU/mL) 48 weeks after TDF withdrawal. RESULTS: Of 93 participants discontinuing TDF (n = 52, TDF + peginterferon alfa-2a; n = 41, TDF alone), 52 (55.9%) had unquantifiable HBV RNA at end of treatment. ALT flares >5 times the upper limit of normal at 48 weeks off therapy occurred in 33.3%, with pretreatment age (≥35 years) and quantifiable HBV RNA at end of treatment the best predictors (area under the receiver operating characteristic curves, 0.74 and 0.85 for training and test sets, respectively). A total of 26 (28.3%) had sustained partial cure, 3 (11.5%) with ALT flare. Nonquantifiable HBV RNA and quantitative HBsAg <100 IU/mL at end of treatment were the best predictors of sustained partial cure (area under the receiver operating characteristic curves, 0.84 and 0.93 for training and test sets). If HBV RNA was quantifiable at end of treatment, the likelihood of sustained partial cure was only 3%, whereas if HBV RNA was unquantifiable and quantitative HBsAg was <100 IU/mL, this likelihood was 73%. CONCLUSIONS: HBV RNA is a useful biomarker in predicting likelihood of achieving sustained partial cure and safe withdrawal of nucleos(t)ide analogues.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".