Quest for immunological biomarkers in the management of CHB patients

Control of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection requires functional virus-specific T cells, yet clinical management of patients with chronic HBV infection (CHB) relies exclusively on the assessment of virological (HBV-DNA, HBsAg) and biochemical (alanine transaminase (ALT)) biomarkers. There is, however, a growing recognition of the necessity to categorise CHB patients based on their profile of HBV-specific immunity. Such immunological biomarkers might guide when to start or stop nucleos(t)ide analogue (NA) therapy, and/or identify patients who would benefit from novel therapeutic strategies designed to modify host–virus interaction by restoring HBV-specific immunity, either directly (therapeutic vaccines or check point inhibitors) or indirectly (antisense nucleotides, siRNA) (figure 1). In Gut, Ferrari and Boni’s group present findings which could potentially help address this unmet clinical need.1 Their study in treatment naïve CHB patients shows that simple phenotypic analysis of total circulating CD8T cells can predict HBV-specific CD8 T cell...
Source: Gut - Category: Gastroenterology Authors: Tags: Gut Commentary Source Type: research